Does Gender Matter? addresses a short question in challenging way
March 9, 2009
Twenty-two artists from across the country examine the ultimate pronoun and its loaded meaning in Does Gender Matter? He, She, It - Third Person Singular, a new exhibition at The Art Institute of Boston and Lesley University.
Cradle, 2007 by Denise Malis
Stretching across two galleries and nearly two months, the exhibit is a summit of the most challenging artists confronting gender politics in their work today.
The result is a stunning, and at times disturbing, evaluation of not only gender, but also sexuality, violence and the prolonged confrontation with the self.
“Artists were invited to submit works of art that perhaps presumed an answer [the question of whether gender matters] in the affirmative, but the complexity of the responses offered ambiguous readings, blurred contexts and subjective meanings,” guest curator Barbara O’Brien writes in an explanatory statement accompanying the show, which is in part sponsored by the Lesley University Women’s Center.
piecework:shrug, 2008 by Anne Shapiro
“The works I have selected often reflect the tradition of the surrealists,” O’Brien continues. “Their lively presence is everywhere felt. The questions they posed in the early 20th century continue to resonate in the works on view.”
Works like Ivana George’s multi-part photo Self-Portrait/Daddy and Claire Owen’s painting The Puppeteer’s Apprentice address androgyny. Joanne McFarland’s paintings Beet and Grapes lure the viewer into a false reverie before revealing a shocking line of text that leaves, O’Brien writes, “unspeakable blanks.” In Emily Corbato’s photograph Havana, men on a Cuban street gaze none-too-innocently at a woman removing bundles from the trunk of a car.
The cumulative effect is one of discomfort, but also the sense of community as a collective of artists examine similar existential themes.
“A lot of it is about issues that pertain to women,” said Art Institute of Boston Associate Professor Joan Ryan, who reviewed submissions and whose painting Revisions is in the exhibition. “There is figurative painting. There is photography. There are a couple of videos. There is needlework and stitching. There is text, so there are really a variety of mediums that women are working in.”
The impetus for Does Gender Matter? was Blaze: Discourse on Art, Women and Feminism, a collection of essays on women and art edited by Lesley University Associate Professor Karen Frostig and Bentley College curator and lecturer Kathy Halamka.
Accompanying the show was a March 5 event entitled “Continued Dialogue with Blaze: Feminists, Artists and Writers,” with a 5 p.m. performance component, a 5:30 p.m. panel discussion and a 7 p.m. wine reception and book signing. The event was be held at Lesley University’s Marran Gallery, 47 Oxford Street, Cambridge.
Does Gender Matter? runs both at The Art Institute of Boston’s Main Gallery in Kenmore Square in Boston and the Marran Gallery. Works are split between the shows.
The Art Institute of Boston Main Gallery show ran Feb. 5 to March 7. The Marran Gallery show runs Feb. 12 to March 30. For hours and more information, visit The Art Institute of Boston gallery exhibition schedule.