JULY 29, 2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ann Hudner (ahudner@risd.edu)
401 454-6347
Marion Davis (mdavis@risd.edu)
401 454-6348

The RISD Museum presents Gloria: Another Look at Feminist Art in the 1970s
Friday, November 21, 2003 through Sunday, February 1, 2004

NEW YORK, NY — The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, presents Gloria: Another Look at Feminist Art of the 1970s, a provocative and multifaceted show of works shaped by the women’s movement, with a focus on media- and performance-based art.  The exhibition runs from Friday, November 21, through Sunday, February 1, and will be supported by a series of public events.

Organized and first shown at White Columns in New York City, Gloria brings together works by world-renowned artists such as Yoko Ono, Cindy Sherman and Jenny Holzer, as well as those of lesser-known figures whose radical and trailblazing art has also been deeply influential on later generations. Though not planned as a traveling exhibition, Gloria struck Judith Tannenbaum, the Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art at The RISD Museum, as so important that she asked to show it as well.  She wanted up-and-coming artists studying at RISD to see it, and men and women throughout New England. The Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, the nation’s only all-female art college, also exhibited Gloria this year.

The exhibition’s name is a nod to various feminist icons of 1970s popular culture: Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms. Magazine and author of the famous Playboy Bunny exposé; Gloria Stivik, the outspoken liberal daughter of Archie Bunker in All in the Family; the role played by Gena Rowlands in the1970 film Gloria; and the title of the Van Morrison song that Patti Smith transformed into a feminist anthem. Tannenbaum said she expects the show to appeal to women who lived through that era as well as their children and grandchildren.

“I think a younger generation of women thinks that feminism belongs to the past, and those issues don’t apply to them,” said Tannenbaum. Yet Gloria shows the power that feminist art can have, and how relevant works like those made in the 1970s can still be today. “A lot of the work is still very fresh, and it’s still very ‘out there.’ This work was done 25, 30 years ago, and yet it still feels just as potent today.”

Curated by Catherine Morris, an independent curator and writer focusing on alternative art forms of the 1970s and author of The Essential Cindy Sherman, and Ingrid Schaffner, senior curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Gloria does not aim to be a complete historical survey, but rather a look at specific works that embody the radicalism and spirit of feminist empowerment of the era. This gives it a distinct perspective amid the multiple reappraisals of feminist art now taking place in exhibitions, publications and scholarship. Along with the art itself, Gloria provides an historical context through the presentation of correspondence, journals, photographs, and other documentary materials.

Gloria includes works by artists who emerged during the first wave of 1960s feminism, such as Carolee Schneemann, Valie Export, and Lynda Benglis, as well as younger artists who caught the tail end of the second wave and rode it into the 1980s mainstream: Jenny Holzer [RISD MFA ’77, Painting], Barbara Kruger. The range of work on view — from Mary Kelly’s photo-documentation of her son’s first bath to Nancy Grossman’s sculpture of a sadomasochistic leather mask — shows that feminist art of the 1970s did not neatly coalesce along any singular formal, material or conceptual lines. Instead, artists were unified by their politics, their commitment to women’s empowerment and an implicit pluralism, since the struggle for equality between the sexes meant no one could dominate. In their choice of works, Morris and Schaffner underscore that the essence of feminist art isn’t form, medium, imagery or a “feminine aesthetic,” but rather the artist’s activist mindset.

The art in Gloria, said Tannenbaum, “is serious both artistically and politically.” Reflecting women’s reassessment of their own bodies and sexuality during that era, some of the work is overtly sexual. And it asserts wome’s desire to represent themselves: “Women were saying that a lot of what was going on in the art world didn’t represent them,” Tannenbaum said. “It wasn’t about them. It wasn’t about their lives.” Defying conventions, the 1970s radicals opened up new ways to merge the personal and the political. “I think their work opens up huge areas of what art can be about,” Tannenbaum said. “It is very much an integration of art and life. And it was very influential on men as well as women. They really gave license to the next generation.”

Underwriting for Gloria has been provided by Corrie Sandelman; funding for the accompanying publication has been provided in part by the Barbara Lee Family Foundation.

NOTE TO REPORTERS
Judith Tannenbaum, Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art, is available for interviews. In addition, catalogs and images from Gloria are available. Please contact Marion Davis at 401 454-6348 or mdavis@risd.edu.

The RISD Museum was founded as part of Rhode Island School of Design in 1877. Today, its permanent collection consists of nearly 80,000 works of art from diverse periods, cultures and genres. Located on the edge of downtown Providence, the Museum showcases an array of ever-changing exhibitions that encompass a range of areas and periods of world culture.

Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-5 pm; third Thursday monthly until 9pm. Admission: $6 for adults; $5 for senior citizens; $2 for ages 5-18; $3 for college students with valid ID. Free: Friday, 12-1:30pm; Sunday, 10am-1pm; Thursday monthly 5-9pm; and last Saturday monthly (Free-for-All Saturday). Information: 401 454-6500.