United States Artists have launched a new initiative to help artists reach audiences to support their work. Suzanne was selected to present a project on the first round of the site and is proposing The Performing Archive with Leslie Labowitz and Kate Johnson.
There are only 10 days left to raise funds! Can you support us?
We are seeking $8,800 to create a single channel video focusing on contemporary readings of feminist art history by young women artists as they encounter an extensive archive of feminist performance art. We have raised 26% so far and have just over a week to fund the project.
What is the legacy of the first wave of feminist art and how do younger women position themselves with respect to this important movement? Coincident with the 2007 exhibition Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Leslie Labowitz and I developed an installation that featured 80 boxes of archival material from 1970-1985 and 13 video interviews of current young women artists searching through, and offering interpretations of, these archives. The project was a success, with reviewers from national magazines commenting on renewed interest in 70s performance and women’s art, and intimate interviews with young women–born during that time–as they sort through received histories to formulate their own perspectives.
This important exchange, exhibited formerly with rare archival materials in a multichannel format, will be more assessable as a single channel video. Money raised will allow us to re-edit the original tapes.
In a moment where both feminist and performance art from 1970-1980 is under close historical scrutiny, it is important to promote cross-generational conversation with young artists who speculate on the meanings of early feminist art practice from the vantage points of their own lives, social context, and how that history has been presented to them.
Click here to visit The Performing Archive project page
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