BRAVO! Member News
MIERLE LADERMAN UKELES
MAINTENANCE ART, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Queens Museum, Photo by Hai Zhang.
ONE OF WEAD’s ORIGINAL ECOART superwomen “Seeds” (aka pioneers), Mierle Laderman Ukeles has been honored with a long-overdue retrospective of her intellectually ambitious, humanly outstanding artwork at the Queens Museum in NY. Curated by QM Curator Larissa Harris with well-respected curator/writer Patricia C. Philips, it opened September 18, 2016, and closes February 19, 2017. A concurrent series of public programs, many participatory, enrich the exhibit experience. If you haven’t seen it, run while there is still time.
A selection of quality reviews, including one by the NY Times Holland Cotter, can be read using the links below.
WEAD congrats and thanks Mierle for being an exemplary role model. Bravo!
Exhibition catalog excerpt:
MAINTENANCE ART, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Queens Museum, Photo by Hai Zhang.
Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art is the first survey of the work of pioneering American artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles (b. Denver, CO, 1939). Including works made between 1962 and 2016, this exhibition traces Ukeles’ career as a feminist performance artist, her almost 40-year tenure as the official, unsalaried Artist-in-Residence at the New York of Sanitation (DSNY), engaging in public art internationally, and as an artist whose Jewish faith has fueled a firm belief in the capacity of the human spirit. Ukeles sees meaning and power in the repetitive, essential daily activities of cleaning, caring for, and keeping a family, city, and planet going. Her Manifesto calls for the full-scale reorganization of society towards the revaluation of maintenance work of all kinds. Decades of performances, sculptural work, and realized and unrealized public art have flowed from these core insights, still profoundly relevant today.
REVIEW LINKS:
RUTH WALLEN
Photomontage, Ruth Wallen, Pine Creek, 2012.
MULTIMEDIA ARTIST RUTH WALLEN creates art to stimulate dialog around ecological and social issues, She now is one of 9 activist ecoartists in a new exhibit called Weather on Steriods: the Art of Climate Change, shown in two venues– La Jolla Historical Society, Feb. 11- May 21; and San Diego Central Library Gallery, June 10- Sept. 3. All artworks were created in collaboration with Scripps Institute for Oceanography scientists.
Wallen reports:
My project, Listen to the Trees, addresses current and predicted future losses of forest trees in two areas of San Diego County– the 6000’ high Laguna Mountains and the coastal Torrey Pines State Park. Large photomontages depicting both forest wonders and dying trees line the walls. In the middle of the space, tree stumps invite visitors to contemplate the scene. Most are actual stumps, but some have touch screens that display diagrams of tree rings from 1950 to 2100 for the Torrey and the Jeffrey pines. For each tree, there are two versions of future tree rings, one for high emissions, “business as usual” scenario (RCP8.5) and one for low emissions, “enlightened government” scenario (RCP4.5). The tree rings are one means to visualize actual or projected climate, but just as tree stumps are often labeled with historical events that occurred in the year of a given tree ring, pressing on selected rings will reveal similar information, in the form of a short narrative and image, about an local ecological event that has occurred or might occur in that year.
Photomontage, Ruth Wallen.
Even using scientific research off tree rings to ascertain past climate, it’s difficult to determine which variables to use from climate models to diagram tree rings for the future in a way that is reasonably scientifically accurate and shows a distinct difference between high and lower emissions scenarios. NOTE: Wallen will write a more detailed report on her tree research, to be published in the next issue of WEAD Magazine.
Ruth Link:
www.ruthwallen.net/listentothetrees
ROBIN LASSER
From MIGRATING CULTURES, an outdoor video projetion mapping event in Oakland, CA. Featured Artists Robin Lasser and G. Craig Hobbs team with Pro Arts, 2016.
WELL KNOWN FOR HER SOCIAL JUSTICE projects, photographer Robin Lasser is one of 12 San Francisco Bay Area artists to receive a 2019 EUREKA FELLOWSHIP, the largest cash prize for individual artists in the Bay Area, sponsored by the Fleishhacker Foundation. Designed to help artists continue making work by supporting more uninterrupted creative time, these prestigious $25,000 awards, are based solely on artistic merit evidenced by previous work, and not restricted to specific projects.
Lasser is a Professor of Art and Coordinator of the Photography Program at San José State University; and the project lead for the Seven Days-Sister City-Artist Exchange. She produces photographs, video, sound, site-specific installations, and public art, which explore environmental, health, cultural and social issues, especially as they pertain to women. Lasser often works in collaboration with other artists, students, public agencies, and international coalitions to produce art and promote public dialogue. The creative team of Robin Lasser + Adrienne Pao have developed and managed the Dress Tents project since 2004.
TENT TOILET, created for World Toilet Day with Lava Mae. Lava Mae upcycles dumped city buses and turns them into showers and toilets for those living on the streets.
Recent national and international showings include Exit Art and Parsons School of Design in New York City; Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan; Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles; De Young Museum in San Francisco; Dom Metenkova Museum of Photography in Yekaterinburg, Russia; Recoleta Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Caixa Cultural Center in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil; Nuit Blanche Festival, Toronto, Canada; Pingyao International Photo Festival in China; and the ZER01 International Biennial in San José CA Her Dress Tents and public art were featured in art, fashion, architecture, and pop culture magazines around the world.
LASSER ARTICLE LINK:
RAHELEH ZOMORODINIA
IRANIAN PHOTOGRAPHER, VISUAL, PERFORMANCE and video artist, Zomorodinia was awarded the 2016-2017 Interdisciplinary Affiliate Program artists residency, at the prestigious Headlands Center of the Arts, outside of Sausalito CA in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The Center is in repurposed Army barracks sited on a bluff above the Pacific Ocean. She received an MFA in New Genres from San Francisco Art Institute (2015), an M.A. in graphic design (2006) and a B.A. in photography(1998) from the Art and Architecture Azad University in Tehran, Iran. She has received MFA Fellowship from San Francisco Art Institute (2013), Photography Award from Pocono Arts Council (2015), and ACRE Residency (2016). Her work has been exhibited locally and internationally in Iran, USA, Finland, Romania, South Korea, Canada, England, and Mexico. She is a WEAD Board member, archivist and social media director.
BRAVO! Member News
MIERLE LADERMAN UKELES
MAINTENANCE ART, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Queens Museum, Photo by Hai Zhang.
ONE OF WEAD’s ORIGINAL ECOART superwomen “Seeds” (aka pioneers), Mierle Laderman Ukeles has been honored with a long-overdue retrospective of her intellectually ambitious, humanly outstanding artwork at the Queens Museum in NY. Curated by QM Curator Larissa Harris with well-respected curator/writer Patricia C. Philips, it opened September 18, 2016, and closes February 19, 2017. A concurrent series of public programs, many participatory, enrich the exhibit experience. If you haven’t seen it, run while there is still time.
A selection of quality reviews, including one by the NY Times Holland Cotter, can be read using the links below.
WEAD congrats and thanks Mierle for being an exemplary role model. Bravo!
Exhibition catalog excerpt:
MAINTENANCE ART, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Queens Museum, Photo by Hai Zhang.
Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art is the first survey of the work of pioneering American artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles (b. Denver, CO, 1939). Including works made between 1962 and 2016, this exhibition traces Ukeles’ career as a feminist performance artist, her almost 40-year tenure as the official, unsalaried Artist-in-Residence at the New York of Sanitation (DSNY), engaging in public art internationally, and as an artist whose Jewish faith has fueled a firm belief in the capacity of the human spirit. Ukeles sees meaning and power in the repetitive, essential daily activities of cleaning, caring for, and keeping a family, city, and planet going. Her Manifesto calls for the full-scale reorganization of society towards the revaluation of maintenance work of all kinds. Decades of performances, sculptural work, and realized and unrealized public art have flowed from these core insights, still profoundly relevant today.
REVIEW LINKS:
RUTH WALLEN
Photomontage, Ruth Wallen, Pine Creek, 2012.
MULTIMEDIA ARTIST RUTH WALLEN creates art to stimulate dialog around ecological and social issues, She now is one of 9 activist ecoartists in a new exhibit called Weather on Steriods: the Art of Climate Change, shown in two venues– La Jolla Historical Society, Feb. 11- May 21; and San Diego Central Library Gallery, June 10- Sept. 3. All artworks were created in collaboration with Scripps Institute for Oceanography scientists.
Wallen reports:
My project, Listen to the Trees, addresses current and predicted future losses of forest trees in two areas of San Diego County– the 6000’ high Laguna Mountains and the coastal Torrey Pines State Park. Large photomontages depicting both forest wonders and dying trees line the walls. In the middle of the space, tree stumps invite visitors to contemplate the scene. Most are actual stumps, but some have touch screens that display diagrams of tree rings from 1950 to 2100 for the Torrey and the Jeffrey pines. For each tree, there are two versions of future tree rings, one for high emissions, “business as usual” scenario (RCP8.5) and one for low emissions, “enlightened government” scenario (RCP4.5). The tree rings are one means to visualize actual or projected climate, but just as tree stumps are often labeled with historical events that occurred in the year of a given tree ring, pressing on selected rings will reveal similar information, in the form of a short narrative and image, about an local ecological event that has occurred or might occur in that year.
Photomontage, Ruth Wallen.
Even using scientific research off tree rings to ascertain past climate, it’s difficult to determine which variables to use from climate models to diagram tree rings for the future in a way that is reasonably scientifically accurate and shows a distinct difference between high and lower emissions scenarios. NOTE: Wallen will write a more detailed report on her tree research, to be published in the next issue of WEAD Magazine.
Ruth Link:listentothetrees
www.ruthwallen.net/
ROBIN LASSER
From MIGRATING CULTURES, an outdoor video projetion mapping event in Oakland, CA. Featured Artists Robin Lasser and G. Craig Hobbs team with Pro Arts, 2016.
WELL KNOWN FOR HER SOCIAL JUSTICE projects, photographer Robin Lasser is one of 12 San Francisco Bay Area artists to receive a 2019 EUREKA FELLOWSHIP, the largest cash prize for individual artists in the Bay Area, sponsored by the Fleishhacker Foundation. Designed to help artists continue making work by supporting more uninterrupted creative time, these prestigious $25,000 awards, are based solely on artistic merit evidenced by previous work, and not restricted to specific projects.
Lasser is a Professor of Art and Coordinator of the Photography Program at San José State University; and the project lead for the Seven Days-Sister City-Artist Exchange. She produces photographs, video, sound, site-specific installations, and public art, which explore environmental, health, cultural and social issues, especially as they pertain to women. Lasser often works in collaboration with other artists, students, public agencies, and international coalitions to produce art and promote public dialogue. The creative team of Robin Lasser + Adrienne Pao have developed and managed the Dress Tents project since 2004.
TENT TOILET, created for World Toilet Day with Lava Mae. Lava Mae upcycles dumped city buses and turns them into showers and toilets for those living on the streets.
Recent national and international showings include Exit Art and Parsons School of Design in New York City; Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan; Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles; De Young Museum in San Francisco; Dom Metenkova Museum of Photography in Yekaterinburg, Russia; Recoleta Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Caixa Cultural Center in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil; Nuit Blanche Festival, Toronto, Canada; Pingyao International Photo Festival in China; and the ZER01 International Biennial in San José CA Her Dress Tents and public art were featured in art, fashion, architecture, and pop culture magazines around the world.
LASSER ARTICLE LINK:
RAHELEH ZOMORODINIA
IRANIAN PHOTOGRAPHER, VISUAL, PERFORMANCE and video artist, Zomorodinia was awarded the 2016-2017 Interdisciplinary Affiliate Program artists residency, at the prestigious Headlands Center of the Arts, outside of Sausalito CA in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The Center is in repurposed Army barracks sited on a bluff above the Pacific Ocean. She received an MFA in New Genres from San Francisco Art Institute (2015), an M.A. in graphic design (2006) and a B.A. in photography(1998) from the Art and Architecture Azad University in Tehran, Iran. She has received MFA Fellowship from San Francisco Art Institute (2013), Photography Award from Pocono Arts Council (2015), and ACRE Residency (2016). Her work has been exhibited locally and internationally in Iran, USA, Finland, Romania, South Korea, Canada, England, and Mexico. She is a WEAD Board member, archivist and social media director.
Share the art: