WACK ! at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center ~ Organized by MOCA

Written by Lucas Zarach Saturday, 02 October 2010 23:37

WACK ! at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center ~ Organized by MOCA  Long Island City, NY – P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, the first comprehensive, historical exhibition to examine the international foundations and legacy of feminist art. Organized by MOCA Ahmanson Curatorial Fellow Connie Butler for The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. WACK!  focuses on the crucial period of the 1970s, during which the majority of feminist activism and artmaking occurred internationally. On  exhibition through 12 May, 2008.
 
Praising the exhibition, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center Director Alanna Heiss notes: "In addition to exploring international occurrences of feminist art, the show emphasizes New York's role in the movement, as well as its relationship with each artist involved. This is a particularly happy coincidence for P.S.1, as Connie Butler, the curator of WACK! in Los Angeles, has since last year joined the staff at the Museum of Modern Art,  and will work on the very special installation of the exhibition with P.S.1 Director of Operations
and Exhibitions Design Antoine Guerrero".
 
Influential proto-feminist work produced by artists in the years immediately prior to the florescence of the ‘70s is also featured, including work by important figures who were active through that crucial decade and beyond, but whose contributions in the mid-‘60s anticipated new feminist aesthetics that took hold during the ‘70s.  The scope of the exhibition also allows for the inclusion of the early work by such  artists as Cindy Sherman and Lorraine O’Grady, representing a division between essentialist work of the ‘70s—which hypothesized a  universal way to portray female experience—and a more theory-driven approach adopted during the ‘80s—which accounted for concepts like race, class, and sexual orientation.
  
The exhibition spans the period of 1965 to 1980 and includes 120 artists and artist groups from the United States, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.  WACK! includes work by women who operated within the political structure of feminism as well as women who did not necessarily embrace feminism as part of their practice, but were impacted by the movement. Comprising work in a broad range of media—including painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, and performance art—the exhibition is organized around themes based on media, geography, formal concerns, collective aesthetic, and political impulses. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.
 
A series of performances and panel discussions presented in the Third Floor Main Gallery will connect featured artists with younger generations inspired by feminism. WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution is organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
 
The presentation of the exhibition at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center is made possible by Kathy and Richard S. Fuld, Jr., Agnes Gund, Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine G. Farley, and the Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, Inc.  Additional support is provided by The Modern Women’s Fund, David Teiger, the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art.
 
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
Background:
 
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center is one of the largest and oldest organizations in the United States solely devoted to  contemporary art. Established in 1976 by Alanna Heiss, P.S.1 originated from The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, a not-for-profit organization founded five years prior with the mission of turning abandoned, underutilized buildings in New York City into artist studios and exhibition spaces. P.S.1 became an affiliate of The Museum of Modern Art in 2000. In 2004, P.S.1 launched the world's first Internet art radio station, Art Radio WPS1.org, which operates out of the historic Clocktower in Lower Manhattan. P.S.1 is open from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Thursday through Monday. It is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day.
 
• artbook@PS1 is open from 1:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., Thursday through Sunday.
• LeRosier Café is open from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Thursday through Monday.
 
Web Sites: www.ps1.org  • www.wps1.org  • www.moma.org

 
Directions:P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center is located at 22-25 Jackson Avenue at 46th Avenue in Long Island City, Queens, NY

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