F*CK U! In The Most Loving Way
Exhibition catalog for "F*CK U! In The Most Loving Way" created by the Northern California Women's Caucus for Art.
Exhibition catalog for "F*CK U! In The Most Loving Way" created by the Northern California Women's Caucus for Art.
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Catalog cover and logo designed by Priscilla Otani<br />
Catalog interior designed by Karen Gutfreund<br />
Copyright 2017 by Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art<br />
ISBN# 9781976336249<br />
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F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> online<br />
Table of Contents<br />
About NCWCA 5<br />
About Arc Gallery & Studios 6<br />
Exhibitions Chair Statement 7<br />
Gallery Managing Partner Statement 8<br />
Gallery Curator Statement 10<br />
Volunteer and Donor Acknowledgements 11<br />
<strong>F*CK</strong> U! Exhibition Collective 12<br />
NCWCA President Statement 14<br />
F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> Prospectus by Tanya Augsburg 15<br />
Event Photos 17<br />
Untidy Truths by Tanya Augsburg 27<br />
FEATURED ARTISTS 41<br />
About the Juror 92<br />
Juror Statement by Shannon Rose Riley 93<br />
NATIONAL ARTISTS 94<br />
Kitchen Table Talk by Tanya Augsburg 182<br />
Video Producer Statement 183<br />
Media Report, Promotions and Programs 184<br />
Women’s March Photos 191<br />
Women’s March Reflections 194<br />
Artist Essays 197<br />
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F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong><br />
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ABOUT NCWCA (SPONSORING ORGANIZATION)<br />
Founded in 1972, Women's Caucus for Art is an affiliate society of the College Art Association and<br />
founding partner of the Feminist Art Project. <strong>The</strong> Northern California Women's Caucus (NCWCA) is<br />
one of its earliest chapters, formed in the same year as national WCA. It is one of six California<br />
chapters and serves members in San Francisco, East Bay, Marin and all parts of Northern California.<br />
Our Mission is to create community through art, education and social activism.<br />
We are committed to:<br />
• Recognizing the contributions of women in the arts<br />
• Providing women with leadership opportunities and professional development<br />
• Expanding networking and exhibition opportunities for women<br />
• Supporting local, national and global art activism<br />
• Advocating for equity in the arts for all<br />
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ABOUT ARC<br />
Arc Gallery & Studios features ten artist studios, a 1,000 sq. ft. art gallery, along with the Kearny Street<br />
Workshop office, the San Francisco Artist Network office and Vega Café . Arc is located at 1246 Folsom<br />
Street, between 8th & 9th streets in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood.<br />
Arc supports the making of quality art in all media, provides a nurturing environment for artists to<br />
create their work, builds a community of artists to encourage exploration of art, provides resources for<br />
the professional development of visual artists, and promotes appreciation of the visual arts in the city<br />
of San Francisco.<br />
Visit www.arc-sf.com<br />
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EXHIBITIONS CHAIR STATEMENT<br />
Like many projects, the idea for this exhibition was conceived in the process of planting seeds<br />
elsewhere. While doing research for a personal project, I became intrigued with Womanhouse, a 1972<br />
exhibition organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro and featuring the works of students in the<br />
Fresno State College's Feminist Art Program. <strong>The</strong> project was notable for being the first feminist art<br />
installation and was a groundbreaking exhibition in so many aspects. It gave young female artists the<br />
opportunity to talk about hidden or overlooked experiences and greater recognition for the feminist<br />
art movement.<br />
I was inspired to both further explore the topics addressed in Womanhouse and expand the voices that<br />
were heard there. My experience has been that the recognized voices of feminism have been those of<br />
white women, and this was reflected in the makeup of the artists of Womanhouse. What has not been<br />
traditionally amplified are the voices and unique experiences of women who are Black, Brown, Trans,<br />
Poor, Asian, and women who had lives beyond traditionally defined domesticity. Though I could<br />
broadly relate to many of the themes of Womanhouse, many subjects were left to be explored, and I<br />
knew that by opening the seats at the table, we would have more to discover. After giving the<br />
exhibition further thought, I considered what could be next and who would be involved in a<br />
contemporary conversation. I also wanted to ensure that voices that were absent from the 1972<br />
dialogue would be heard today. So in 2016, I suggested to the NCWCA board members that we<br />
continue and expand upon the Womanhouse themes. <strong>The</strong>y agreed.<br />
During our initial meeting to discuss the focus of the exhibition, we quickly settled on the title Fuck<br />
You! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>. Understandably, the title of the show met with different responses<br />
ranging from rousing approval to disgust, and at times confusion, especially about the use of "<strong>In</strong> the<br />
most loving way." I leave everyone to have their individual interpretations, but I will say that love is at<br />
the heart of every struggle for justice and freedom. Without love, no progress is possible. Love pushes<br />
back against patriarchy. Love is the promise that follows the “Fuck You.” “<strong>In</strong> the most loving way” is<br />
the warning of the challenge to come.<br />
This exhibition would not have happened without the contributions of the F*ck U! committee<br />
members. A special note of recognition to Priscilla Otani and Tanya Augsburg, who worked on nearly<br />
every aspect of this project for almost nine months. Also, to Karen Gutfreund for producing this fine<br />
publication and leading the exhibition installation. Finally, to my partner, Russell C. Petersen, who<br />
provided both input and support. I am ever grateful for the dedication and vision of all of these<br />
remarkable women (and man). Thank you.<br />
Leisel Whitlock<br />
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ARC GALLERY MANAGING PARTNER STATEMENT<br />
Each year-end, the Arc Gallery partners donate gallery space to a non-profit. <strong>In</strong> 2016, we invited the<br />
Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art (NCWCA) to mount an exhibition. As both a gallery<br />
partner and member of the NCWCA board, I was responsible for the smooth operation of the gallery<br />
space and participated in the show’s development and administration.<br />
When Exhibition Chair Leisel Whitlock first proposed an activist exhibition that referenced<br />
Womanhouse, the NCWCA board members were immediately intrigued. Each of us had an idea of<br />
what the exhibition might focus on, but many of us did not know enough about the history of the<br />
original Womanhouse. After some readings and viewing Johanna Demetrakas's documentary video, we<br />
discussed what the physical possibilities of such an exhibition might be at Arc Gallery. <strong>The</strong> gallery is not<br />
a house as was the original exhibition site of Womanhouse. It is a former industrial space converted<br />
into a multi-use building that includes two galleries, artist studios and micro-businesses. This meant<br />
that the display and artwork in our main and project galleries could not create an obstacle course or a<br />
fire hazard for the tenants. We abandoned the original concept of converting the gallery spaces into<br />
separate rooms with two exceptions. <strong>The</strong> Arc consulting office had its own four walls that could be<br />
used as a symbolic room. My studio upstairs was large enough and available to be used as a<br />
performance space.<br />
At the first (and only) exhibition committee meeting on June 5, 2016, we made key decisions and<br />
agreed to roles that drove the project from beginning to end. This exhibition would explore women's<br />
relational roles through racial, cultural and gender perspectives and would be given the provocative<br />
title of F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>. This would be a national juried exhibition open to all women;<br />
additionally, works of a few featured artists would be included, one or more original Womanhouse<br />
artists would be invited, there would be some aspect of community involvement and we would allow<br />
for a wide range of media including video and performance. We wanted to have either a professor or<br />
gallerist to jury the national submissions, as well as to hire a professional publicist to publicize the<br />
show and events, and later to create a comprehensive catalog and documentary video. As the<br />
discussion progressed, the exhibition became ambitious. Complexity was added only when an<br />
individual committed to owning that added scope. <strong>The</strong>se agreements were critically important<br />
because NCWCA is an all-volunteer organization. With less than six months to opening reception, our<br />
project would have been disastrous if a key player dropped out or did not meet her commitments.<br />
<strong>The</strong> F*ck U! project was managed through a project plan. Leisel Whitlock and I developed step by step<br />
actions and milestones which were updated and enhanced from time to time. Leisel’s key<br />
responsibility was to make sure each committee member met the schedule’s deliverables and<br />
deadlines. I also developed a budget and income/expense spreadsheet so that we could track our<br />
finances.<br />
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Our financial goal was at the minimum, break-even; at best, end up with a small profit. Updating and<br />
maintaining this spreadsheet helped us manage unanticipated expenses and income. I trained<br />
committee members on exhibition management and our hired publicist trained us on publicity. All<br />
committee members met their commitments to the project, which included project management,<br />
administration, artist interface, management of featured artists, publicity, financial management,<br />
installation and de-installation of gallery, gallery curation, catalog, video, reception logistics, and event<br />
logistics. Equally important, we were flexible, assuming multiple roles and assisting others when help<br />
was needed.<br />
<strong>The</strong> community involvement aspect of our project was undefined at the beginning but began to take<br />
shape as the project progressed. <strong>In</strong> the end, we came up with three types of involvement. <strong>The</strong> first was<br />
a response to the Now Be Here project in Los Angeles where more than 700 women artists posed<br />
together in a photoshoot by Kim Schoenstadt on August 28, 2016. We decided to hold our own<br />
Creating Space photoshoot at Yerba Buena Gardens on October 2, 2016. We invited our members and<br />
randomly posted a call on Facebook for Bay Area artists to show up and be photographed. About 33<br />
artists came, and committee member Mido Lee took the group portrait. This group shot was<br />
supplemented by selfies of women outside of the Bay Area and we created a group poster. <strong>The</strong> second<br />
was an invitation by Tanya Augsburg to her students to help videotape and photo-document the<br />
opening reception and performance by Emma Sulkowicz and Violet Overn. <strong>The</strong> third was a<br />
performance by Augsburg titled Kitchen Table Talk where the audience was invited to participate in<br />
brainstorming and discussion. All of these expanded participation in our exhibition.<br />
This project was a marathon and the committee faced challenges each step of the way. <strong>The</strong>y included<br />
negotiating with original Womanhouse artists on their vision of the show vs our vision, the amount of<br />
time it took to follow up and manage each juried and featured artist, managing the project on a tight<br />
budget and determining when we could/could not allow for scope creep, overcoming a steep learning<br />
curve on publicity, providing backup when a committee member could not attend an event or work on<br />
the project due to travel, work or family conflicts, finding a venue for our video screenings,<br />
performance and Womanhouse reunion, changing the focus and tone of the exhibition when Hillary<br />
Clinton did not win the Presidential election, figuring out staffing alternatives when not enough people<br />
signed up to volunteer for all of the events, dealing with low attendance on some of our events, and<br />
realizing that we would have to cancel our closing panel, reception and party because they coincided<br />
with the Women’s Marches all over the country on January 21, 2017. That we worked through them as<br />
a collective speaks to how professional and well-organized we were. <strong>In</strong> the end, we produced F*ck U!<br />
<strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>, a successful exhibition that was ahead of other anti-Trumpism shows of<br />
protest, resistance, and nasty women.<br />
Priscilla Otani<br />
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GALLERY CURATOR and EDITOR STATEMENT<br />
I love activist art, and in particular, I love women’s art. It has such a narrative quality that I gravitate<br />
towards. <strong>The</strong> stories, emotion and passion from the artists feed my soul. So, I was pleased and<br />
honored to be on the exhibition committee and asked to layout the main gallery and project gallery of<br />
the exhibition for F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>. Having created over thirty national exhibitions for<br />
women artists individually, with the Women’s Caucus for Art and Gutfreund Cornett Art—the<br />
“designing/layout” of the works is by far my favorite part. It’s magical, having all the work together<br />
from the group show and then placing it to tell “the story.”<br />
I’m always asked—how do I do it? Well, it is a lot of work, takes a good amount of time and one must<br />
have the eye for it. I move the works around and around in the room, placing the strongest works in<br />
key places to direct the flow around the exhibition space. Group shows can be challenging because the<br />
works can be so different and sometimes disparate. But they eventually tell me where they need to be<br />
and flow beautifully, telling a remarkable story.<br />
<strong>In</strong> addition to curating the gallery, I also was the editor for this exhibition catalog. To date I’ve created<br />
over 30 exhibition catalogs but this one was an extensive labor of love. Documenting and correctly<br />
acknowledging the work, the essays, the exhibition and the programming is so important. <strong>The</strong><br />
exhibition was up for a month but this catalog will last forever, so to speak.<br />
<strong>In</strong> regards to activist, feminist art—with this turbulent time of political changes, women's rights, social,<br />
racial, gender and economic inequality, and reproductive choice/health care issues—how do we effect<br />
positive change through art? How do we listen, speak our minds, include, and act in collaboration or<br />
alone across generational differences, races, identities and cultures, to build our future, locally and<br />
globally? I think this exhibition spoke eloquently to these subjects. Art can be a powerful, productive<br />
force and instrumental in sparking change or critical thinking. As a feminist curator, I am committed to<br />
promoting women’s art and supporting local, national, and global art activism. Art can produce a<br />
visceral response and can provoke, inspire, or disturb, and opens your eyes to worlds other than your<br />
own. While the artist may not consider themselves to be a revolutionary, by bringing to light issues and<br />
concerns, art can effect change. We need art that help us to understand what is happening in our<br />
society, who we are, where we come from and where we’re going.<br />
Karen Gutfreund<br />
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VOLUNTEER and DONOR ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS<br />
NCWCA thanks the following individuals and organizations without whose help and support F*ck U! <strong>In</strong><br />
the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> would not have realized its full potential.<br />
Donors<br />
9th Street <strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center, 145 Ninth Street, San Francisco, CA<br />
Homestead, 4029 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland, CA<br />
Kay Kang<br />
Priscilla Otani<br />
SOMA Trader Joe’s, 555 9 th Street, San Francisco, CA<br />
Juror<br />
Prof. Shannon Rose Riley<br />
Volunteers<br />
Elizabeth Addison, MGP Andersen, Tanya Augsburg, Dio Chen, Gabriel Docto, Jorge Donate, Kathy Fujii-<br />
Oka, Karen Gutfreund, Josefin Jansson, Rebekah Johnson, Judy Johnson-Williams, Kuo-Chen Kacy Jung,<br />
Linda Kattwinkel, Jennifer L. King, Gayle Lorraine, Monica Maser, Chanel Matsunami Govreau, Julie<br />
Mevi, Patricia A. Montgomery, Priscilla Otani, Bryon Roche, Sawyer Rose, Lena Shey, Judy Shintani,<br />
Mary Shisler, Kamaljit Singh, Colette Gunter Standish, Yuriko Takata, Jeffrey Thatcher, Victoria Veedell,<br />
Leisel Whitlock, Sandra Yagi, Tanya Wilkinson and Michael Yochum.<br />
Consultant<br />
Sally Douglas Arce, Media Relations<br />
Gallery Staff<br />
Tory Antoni<br />
Tamiko Sidori<br />
Zachariah Greer Hauptman<br />
Technicians<br />
Jon Bastian, projectionist, 9 th Street <strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center<br />
Mido Lee, videographer & video editor<br />
Tsering Norbu, videographer<br />
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<strong>F*CK</strong> U! EXHIBITION COLLECTIVE<br />
Leisel Whitlock, Exhibitions Chair<br />
Tanya Augsburg, Featured Artist Curator & Programming Chair<br />
Sawyer Rose, PR Chair<br />
Priscilla Otani, Arc Gallery Managing Partner<br />
Karen Gutfreund, Artist Liaison, Gallery Curator & Catalog Editor<br />
Mido Lee, Tech Specialist & Documentarian<br />
Judy Johnson-Williams, Gallery Logistics<br />
Sandra Yagi, Treasurer<br />
Patricia Montgomery, Event Logistics<br />
Elizabeth Addison, Event Logistics<br />
Lena Shey, Volunteer Logistics<br />
<strong>F*CK</strong> U! VOLUNTEERS & STAFF<br />
F*ck U! <strong>In</strong>stallation<br />
December 13 - 15, 2016<br />
Volunteers: MGP Andersen, Tanya Augsburg, Karen Gutfreund, Josefin Jansson, Judy Johnson-<br />
Williams, Gayle Lorraine, Priscilla Otani, Lena Shey, Judy Shintani, Colette Standish, Victoria Veedell,<br />
Leisel Whitlock, Michael Yochum<br />
Opening Reception<br />
December 17, 2016<br />
Volunteers: Elizabeth Addison, MGP Andersen, Tanya Augsburg, Gabriel Docto, Jorge Donate, Kathy<br />
Fujii-Oka, Josefin Jansson, Rebekah Johnson, Linda Kattwinkel, Jennifer L. King, Julie Mevi, Patricia<br />
Montgomery, Priscilla Otani, Sawyer Rose, Mary Shisler, Jeffrey Thatcher, Leisel Whitlock, Michael<br />
Yochum<br />
Videographer: Tsering Norbu, Sandra Yagi<br />
San Francisco State Lecture by Emma Sulkowicz and Violet Overn<br />
December 19, 2016<br />
Speakers: Emma Sulkowicz and Violet Overn<br />
Organizer: Tanya Augsburg<br />
Photographers: Priscilla Otani, Kamaljit Singh<br />
Videographer: Tanya Augsburg<br />
Docent Tour of Exhibition<br />
January 13, 2017 1:00 - 3:00 PM<br />
Docent: Tanya Augsburg<br />
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Photographer: Priscilla Otani<br />
Gallery Assistant: Tory Antoni<br />
Womanhouse Reunion<br />
January 13, 2017, 6-9:00 PM<br />
Womanhouse Artists: Faith Wilding and Karen LeCocq<br />
Womanhouse Documentary Videographer: Johanna Demetrakas<br />
Volunteers: Tanya Augsburg, Elizabeth Addison, Patricia A. Montgomery, Priscilla Otani, Mary Shisler,<br />
Yuriko Takata, Leisel Whitlock, Michael Yochum<br />
Photographer: Mido Lee<br />
Videographers: Chanel Matsunami Govreau, Mido Lee<br />
An Afternoon of Performance<br />
Saturday, January 14, 2017, 1:30-3:00 PM<br />
Performers: Tanya Augsburg, Faith Wilding and Viêt Lê<br />
Volunteers: Tanya Augsburg, Josefin Jansson, Monica Maser, Priscilla Otani.<br />
Photographer: Kuo-Chen Kacy Jung, Bryon Roche<br />
Videographers: Chanel Matsunami Govreau, Mido Lee<br />
F*ck U! Video Screening<br />
January 14, 2017, 7-10:00 PM<br />
Volunteers: Tanya Augsburg, Priscilla Otani<br />
Photographer: Mido Lee<br />
Videographers: Dio Chen, Sandra Yagi<br />
Gallery Assistant: Zachariah Greer Hauptman<br />
De-installation<br />
January 22 -25, 2017<br />
Volunteers: Karen Gutfreund, Judy Johnson-Williams, Priscilla Otani, Tanya Wilkinson, Michael Yochum<br />
Gallery Assistants: Tory Antoni, Tamiko Sidore<br />
Donors<br />
Kay Kang<br />
Priscilla Otani<br />
9 th Street <strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center<br />
Homestead<br />
Trader Joe’s<br />
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NCWCA PRESIDENT STATEMENT<br />
WCA has always been a feminist activist group. We were formed in 1972 when women artists, critics<br />
and professors were very underrepresented at professional conferences. Our early founders included<br />
women who were part of Womanhouse, the Feminist Artist Program at Cal Arts.<br />
WCA is now a nationwide organization with chapters in many states. California, for example, has five.<br />
Each chapter in California has its own personality but the Northern California chapter (NCWCA) is<br />
regarded as the most activist. NCWCA has hosted shows on the environment, reproductive rights, and<br />
now—the legacies of feminism art with the current exhibition's two-fold tribute and critical<br />
examination of Womanhouse. Back in the summer of 2016 when we were planning the exhibition we<br />
thought, as many did, we’d be celebrating the election and inauguration of the first U.S. woman<br />
President during the exhibition. When that didn’t happen, we quickly switched to flexing our protest<br />
and marching muscles. And, of course, we made art.<br />
We hope you enjoy this show and are inspired to create your own artistic response to the current<br />
political scene.<br />
Judy Johnson-Williams<br />
NCWCA President 2017<br />
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F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong><br />
Prospectus<br />
Summer 2016<br />
<strong>The</strong> primary goal of the exhibition F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> is to revisit the critiques of women’s<br />
relational roles presented in the 1972 landmark feminist Womanhouse exhibition by showing works<br />
that address women’s ongoing challenges to build their lives and thrive within ongoing structural and<br />
intersectional systems of oppression.<br />
<strong>In</strong> 1971, under the direction of Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, 25 students in the Feminist Art<br />
Program at California <strong>In</strong>stitute of the Arts began work on an old deserted Hollywood mansion. <strong>The</strong><br />
exhibition was open to the public from January 30 to February 28, 1972, and is widely known as one of<br />
the first major public exhibitions of feminist art. Numerous room installations were created to highlight<br />
women’s experiences, gender stereotypes, social expectations for women, and the exploitation of<br />
women’s roles such as unpaid domestic affective laborers, i.e., “homemakers.”<br />
<strong>In</strong> the years since this project was realized, much has changed. <strong>The</strong> majority of women now have lives<br />
that expand far beyond traditional domestic walls either by choice or by necessity. Despite their social<br />
advances, women find themselves at odds with ongoing expectations of ableist heteronormative<br />
patriarchy that refuses to recognize transwomen and genderqueer individuals as women; denies queer<br />
women their rights to marry and have children; and discourages women with disabilities from living on<br />
their own with dignity. Married and single mothers continue to take primary responsibility for<br />
domestic chores, childrearing, and familial caretaking–even as they work outside the home as the sole<br />
or primary breadwinners in their families. Meanwhile, women who embrace leadership roles outside<br />
the realms of domesticity still encounter disrespect, pity, or both.<br />
At a time when crude, rude, and sexist discourses in the public sphere seem to be increasingly the<br />
norm, this exhibition explores how women are choosing to express their discontent with prescribed<br />
and outdated binary gender roles. F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> surveys the range of possible<br />
responses women can select when confronted with conflict within relationships. Can we reply in ways<br />
that lead to resolution and more love? Or is it important that women strive to win debates from which<br />
they were previously excluded? Since women have been silenced for so long, this exhibition provides a<br />
platform for women to air their grievances in manners of their choosing while reminding the viewer<br />
that identity is fluid, relational, intersectional, performative, and participatory. This exhibition aims to<br />
foster dialogue about where women position themselves centrally yet in relation to others. It features<br />
artworks that confront traditional gender roles, express what a “woman” is today, and depict what a<br />
woman’s life is currently really like.<br />
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Opening shortly after the 2016 United States presidential election, this timely exhibition welcomes all<br />
points of view about female individuals seeking and possessing power, which includes political power,<br />
but also self-empowerment. This exhibition spotlights women’s artistic endeavors to overcome and<br />
put a stop to emotional abuse, physical abuse, domestic abuse, sexual abuse and violence, sexist<br />
insults, unrealistic demands, sexual harassment, discriminatory refusals, online trolling, psychological<br />
manipulations, and microaggressions of all kinds. F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> celebrates utopian<br />
and revolutionary visions about women’s voices, focusing on women’s self-expression, self-respect,<br />
and self-care. <strong>The</strong> provocative artworks in this historic feminist exhibition foster dialogue, whether<br />
shocking, confrontational, polite, healing, or well-reasoned. Ultimately, the exhibition promotes<br />
further investigation of positive and productive ways to overcome what is often dismissed as women’s<br />
hysterical overreactions, bitchy rants, unjustifiable anger, or passive aggressive resentment.<br />
Tanya Augsburg<br />
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TANYA AUGSBURG/BIO:<br />
Tanya Augsburg is a humanities-trained, interdisciplinary feminist performance scholar, critic, and<br />
curator who can be occasionally persuaded to perform. She teaches at San Francisco State University,<br />
where she is currently Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Liberal Studies in the areas<br />
of the Humanities and Creative Arts. She is a proud member of NCWCA, serving on the board as Art<br />
Historian in Residence. She served on the Executive Exhibition Committee as Featured Artists Curator<br />
and Programming Chair for NCWCA’s recent national exhibition, F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>. <strong>The</strong><br />
performance she premiered during F*ck You in the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>, Kitchen Table Talk (2016), is a<br />
work in progress that has been continually revised in urgent response to current political events. It was<br />
selected in 2017 to be on the calendar of 100 Days Action, an online project that serves as a<br />
counternarrative to the current administration’s 100 Day plan.<br />
Dr. Augsburg is additionally Vice-President, Relations, of the Association for <strong>In</strong>terdisciplinary Studies<br />
(AIS). Dr. Augsburg is author of Becoming <strong>In</strong>terdisciplinary: An <strong>In</strong>troduction to <strong>In</strong>terdisciplinary<br />
Studies, 3rd Ed. (Kendall/Hunt, 2016) and co-editor of <strong>The</strong> Politics of <strong>In</strong>terdisciplinary<br />
Studies (McFarland, 2009). Her survey book chapter on the interdisciplinary arts is published<br />
in <strong>The</strong> Oxford Handbook of <strong>In</strong>terdisciplinarity, 2nd Edition (2017). Other publications have appeared<br />
in TDR: <strong>The</strong> Drama Review; Text and Performance Quarterly; Issues in <strong>In</strong>terdisciplinary<br />
Studies; n.paradoxa: <strong>In</strong>ternational Feminist Art Journal; World Futures; Colorado Critical Review;<br />
theartsection: An Online Journal of Art and Cultural Commentary; and Critical Matrix: <strong>The</strong> Princeton<br />
Journal of Women, Gender, and Culture. Her current scholarly projects include completing a booklength<br />
manuscript on the interdisciplinary arts and a book-length manuscript on what she is calling<br />
feminist ars erotica.
<strong>In</strong>stallation at Arc Gallery, 1246 Folsom St, San Francisco, December 13-14, 2016<br />
Images top row left to right:<br />
• Opening Kellie Krouse’s shipped work, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
• Leisel Whitlock and Victoria Veedell putting up vinyl lettering, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
Images bottom row left to right:<br />
• Kay Kang hanging her work, works by Emma Sulkowicz flanking Kay’s work, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
• Judy Johnson-Williams and Judy Shintani setting up Leisel Whitlock’s work, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
17
<strong>In</strong>stallation at Arc Gallery, 1246 Folsom St, San Francisco, December 13-14, 2016<br />
Image left:<br />
• Judy Johnson-Williams, Michael Yochum and Judy Shintani hanging Susan Ahlf’s work, Tanya Augsburg taking a<br />
photo, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
Images right top to bottom:<br />
• Karen Gutfreund curating gallery, Judy Johnson-Williams assisting, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
• Tanya Augsburg, Colette Standish, Josefin Jansson, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
18
Opening Reception: Arc Gallery, 1246 Folsom St, San Francisco, December 17, 2016<br />
Images first row, left to right:<br />
• Gallery entrance with exhibition title and Creating Space poster, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
• Phoebe Ackley, photo by Jeffrey Thatcher<br />
• Kellie Krouse, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
• Judy Shintani, photo by Jeffrey Thatcher<br />
• Nancy Roy Meyer’s work, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
Images second row, left to right:<br />
• Dwora Fried, photo by Jeffrey Thatcher<br />
• Blond Jenny and Priscilla Otani, photo courtesy of Blond Jenny<br />
• Karen Gutfreund, photo by Jeffrey Thatcher<br />
• Leisel Whitlock, photo by Jeffrey Thatcher<br />
• Kay Kang, photo by Jeffrey Thatcher<br />
Images third row, left to right:<br />
• Susan Ahlfs, photo by Jeffrey Thatcher<br />
• Shannon Rose Riley, photo by Jeffrey Thatcher<br />
• Blond Jenny’s lips, photo courtesy of Blond Jenny<br />
• Tanya Augsburg, photo by Jeffrey Thatcher<br />
• Gallery crowd, photo by Blond Jenny<br />
Images fourth row, left to right<br />
• Leisel Whitlock’s work: photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
• Violet Overn, photo by Jeffrey Thatcher<br />
• Elizabeth Addison, Leisel Whitlock, Patricia Montgomery, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
• Emma Sulkowicz, photo by Jeffrey Thatcher<br />
• Jennifer Colby, WCA Past President, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
Images fifth row, left to right<br />
• Rokudenashiko’s works: photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
• Blond Jenny and Victoria Helena Mihatovic, photo by Blond Jenny<br />
• Judy Shintani and Priscilla Otani, photo by Blond Jenny<br />
• Audience viewing Rulers performance by Sulkowicz and Overn, photo by Blond Jenny<br />
• Measurement left on plant, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
19
Opening Reception at Arc Gallery<br />
Saturday, December 17, 2016<br />
20
Rulers. Performance by Emma Sulkowicz and Violet Overn—Saturday, December 17, 2016<br />
Image left: Emma Sulkowicz and Violet Overn, photo by Blond Jenny<br />
Image top right: Emma Sulkowicz and Violet Over, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
Image bottom right: Measurement left in Priscilla Otani's studio, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
21
Lecture at SFSU with Emma Sulkowicz and Violet Overn—December 19, 2016<br />
Humanities Room 133, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco<br />
Artists Emma Sulkowicz and Violet Overn discussed their work, including their new collaborative performance<br />
piece, Rulers. <strong>The</strong> lecture was sponsored by the School of Humanities and Liberal Studies, SF State and cosponsored<br />
by the SF State School of Art in San Francisco. Location is HUM Room 133 in the Southwest Quad 3 on<br />
the SF State campus. <strong>The</strong> address of SF State is 1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco.<br />
Images top row, left to right:<br />
• Tanya Augsburg, photo by Kamaljit Singh, and Violet Overn, photo by Kamaljit Singh<br />
Images bottom row, left to right:<br />
• Emma Sulkowicz, photo by Kamaljit Singh, and Emma Sulkowicz and Violet Overn, photo by Priscilla<br />
Otani<br />
22
Docent Tour of Exhibition—Friday, January 13, 2017<br />
Tanya Augsburg lead a lecture tour of the F*ck U! exhibition. <strong>The</strong> public was invited to attend, held at Arc Gallery,<br />
San Francisco, CA. All photos taken by Priscilla Otani.<br />
Images top row, left to right:<br />
• Tanya Augsburg speaking in front of works by Susan Ahlfs and Patricia Olson<br />
• Visitors viewing works by Judy Shintani, Emma Sulkowicz and Kay Kang<br />
Images bottom row, left to right:<br />
• Tanya Augsburg discussing Ester Hernandez’s work<br />
• <strong>In</strong> the Womanhouse Revisited room<br />
23
Womanhouse Reunion — December 17, 2016 and January 13, 2017<br />
Arc Gallery and Ninth Street <strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center, 145 9th Street, San Francisco<br />
Two Womanhouse videos were screened and original Womanhouse artists Faith Wilding and Karen LeCocq<br />
together with filmmaker Johanna Demetrakas attended, held at the Ninth Street <strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center, 145<br />
9th Street, San Francisco.<br />
Images top row, left to right:<br />
• Nancy Youdelman’s work in the “Revisiting Womanhouse” room, photo by Priscilla Otani, and Karen<br />
Le Cocq viewing Johanna Demetrakas’ Womanhouse video, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
Images bottom row, left to right:<br />
• Nancy Youdelman with her daughter in front of her work, photo by Maria Karras, and Karen Le Cocq,<br />
Faith Wilding and Johanna Demetrakas at the Womanhouse Reunion, photo by Mido Lee<br />
24
Performance Afternoon—January 14, 2017<br />
at 9th Street <strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center, 145 9th Street, San Francisco, CA<br />
Images top row, left to right:<br />
• Audience participating in Tanya Augsburg’s Kitchen Table Talk, photo by Bryon Roché<br />
• Mido Lee documenting work produced in Kitchen Table Talk, photo by Bryon Roché<br />
Image bottom row:<br />
• Faith Wilding, photo by Priscilla Otani<br />
25
Video Festival and Screening—Saturday, January 14, 2017<br />
at Ninth Street <strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center, 145 9th Street, San Francisco, CA.<br />
Images top row, left to right:<br />
• Tracy Brown, and Chanel Matsunami Govreau, photo by Mido Lee<br />
Images bottom row, left to right:<br />
• Amy Finkbeiner, and Amy Finkbeiner, Chanel Matsunam Govreau and Tracy Brown, photo by Mido<br />
Lee<br />
26
Some Untidy Truths: On Curating the “Revisiting Womanhouse” Space<br />
in F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong><br />
Tanya Augsburg<br />
Origins<br />
F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> is an exhibition organized by the Northern California Women’s Caucus<br />
for Art (NCWCA) that took place at Arc Gallery in San Francisco from December 17, 2016 to January 21,<br />
2017.<br />
<strong>The</strong> members of NCWCA had for some time discussed doing a show that referenced the 1972 landmark<br />
feminist installation Womanhouse. NCWCA Exhibition Director Leisel Whitlock originally proposed that<br />
NCWCA put on an exhibition that would be a critical response to Womanhouse’s focus on the domestic<br />
spaces and experiences of white middle-class heterosexual housewives. More specifically, Whitlock<br />
envisioned the show as a contemporary artistic exploration of the social and domestic roles of all those<br />
who self-identify as women and/or female in 2016 (and not just white heterosexual ciswomen), which<br />
included considerations of how the concept of domesticity has evolved since the early 1970s.<br />
When the Exhibition Committee, which renamed itself as the Exhibition Collective for this exhibition,<br />
met in NCWCA President Judy Johnson-William’s home on a warm Sunday afternoon in early June 2016,<br />
the rest of its members and I brainstormed about possible titles for the show.<br />
As we talked about our own experiences, as well as our concerns over current American politics, Leisel<br />
Whitlock suggested the title Fuck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>.<br />
Not all of the Exhibition Collective members were initially enthused about the provocative exhibition<br />
title. Some objected to the profanity. Others were concerned about press and publishing as the word<br />
“fuck” is not one that can be uttered or published in mainstream media. However, when Judy Johnson-<br />
Williams pulled out the Summer 2016 issue of Art Forum and pointed out Ara Osterweil’s article “Fuck<br />
You! A Feminist Guide to Surviving the Art World” we knew we were on the right track. 1 We also had<br />
enough media savviness to insert an asterisk into our exhibition title, replacing “Fuck” with “F*ck.” 2<br />
After the meeting, I wrote the exhibition prospectus with input from the other Exhibition Collective<br />
members.<br />
“Revisiting Womanhouse” was not part of the initial vision of the show that the NCWCA Exhibition<br />
Collective worked on during the summer of 2016. <strong>The</strong> idea for “Revisiting Womanhouse” emerged out<br />
of my email exchanges with Womanhouse co-director and artist Judy Chicago in late August and early<br />
September 2016. xo<br />
27
<strong>In</strong> response to Judy Chicago’s feedback, the Exhibition Executive Committee (Leisel Whitlock, Priscilla<br />
Otani, and I) decided conjointly to expand the show to include a critical tribute to Womanhouse in a<br />
designated space.<br />
<strong>The</strong> major problem with expansion was the dearth of exhibition space. Arc Gallery has a main gallery<br />
and a side project gallery for exhibition space. <strong>Most</strong> of the works selected by the juror, Shannon Rose<br />
Riley, were to be exhibited in these two spaces. <strong>The</strong> only available space to exhibit additional artworks<br />
was the office space adjacent to the gallery.<br />
Truth be told: NCWCA’s annexation of the office space for the duration of its exhibition was probably a<br />
bit more than what was originally envisioned when the four Arc Gallery’s partners agreed to donate its<br />
space for the exhibition. Nevertheless, Priscilla Otani as Gallery Managing Partner persuaded Arc’s<br />
three other partners that it would be in their best interest to temporarily convert the gallery office into<br />
an additional exhibition space called “Revisiting Womanhouse.”<br />
Early Steps<br />
<strong>The</strong> planning for F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> coincided with the later stages of the 2016 U.S.<br />
Presidential Campaign, election, and immediate aftermath. Our hopes for the outcome of the election<br />
influenced our decision-making, as did our dismay about what we regarded as the deterioration of<br />
civility in public discourse that was trickling down to the private sphere. <strong>The</strong> NCWCA Exhibition<br />
Collective refined its ideas for the exhibition continuously leading up to the opening; however, we also<br />
had some fixed ideas right from the start. As already mentioned, we wanted the exhibition to be a<br />
critical reconsideration of the issues presented and implied in Womanhouse from a myriad of<br />
contemporary feminist perspectives to reflect current realities for all those who identify as women.<br />
We aimed to include multiple mediums in the show, including painting, drawing, sculpture,<br />
assemblage, fiber art, performance, video, and film. Given the gallery’s limitations, we reluctantly<br />
decided against exhibiting new media, internet art, and installation art. As part of the exhibition<br />
programming we would ultimately organize an afternoon for performance and two evenings of video<br />
and film screenings. We were honored that the 9 th Street <strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center donated its space<br />
for exhibition performances and screenings over two days on January 13-14, 2017.<br />
We all agreed that it was crucial for the show’s success to exhibit work that was chosen through a blind<br />
jury process with an outside juror. We were also serious about putting on a show comprised of<br />
multiple voices, which is why it was organized by a committee of a numerous key players and decision<br />
makers. It would be a bit of an experiment, but we were confident that this collaborative<br />
multidisciplinary process would create a synergy that would be greater than any of its individual parts<br />
or contributions.<br />
We had done our research on the history of Womanhouse: we knew that while its concept was<br />
…………..<br />
28
originally suggested by art historian Paula Harper, the installation was created by 21 students in the<br />
Feminist Art Program at CalArts under the direction and tutelage of their teachers, artists Judy Chicago<br />
and Miriam Shapiro, with contributions from three other artists. <strong>The</strong> two-month process of getting<br />
Womanhouse ready was neither easy nor smooth, and we did not expect ours to be any different. We<br />
were up to the task, willing to take on the challenges of collaboration in order to reap its benefits.<br />
Aiming to strengthen the links we were creating between Womanhouse and F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong><br />
<strong>Way</strong>, we sought to include as featured artists those who were part of the original Womanhouse<br />
exhibition. We were thrilled when original Womanhouse artists Faith Wilding, Nancy Youdelman, and<br />
Karen LeCocq accepted our invitations to participate in our show, as did filmmaker Johanna<br />
Demetrakas, who had made the documentary about Womanhouse, also titled Womanhouse (1974).<br />
Although we did invite Wilding to perform again her iconic Womanhouse performance Waiting, she<br />
had another idea. She proposed to perform welcome-waiting, a collaborative performance with San<br />
Francisco artist Việt Lê, with collected images by Michelle Dizon. <strong>The</strong> performance, welcome-waiting<br />
addresses a number of political issues that concerned Wilding during the time when Womanhouse was<br />
created, such as American colonialism and the Vietnam War. According to Wilding,<br />
Womanhouse did not explicitly exclude the larger issues of the day—some of the performances<br />
certainly alluded to them as did collages hidden in the kitchen drawers that showed anti-war<br />
protests, Angela Davis speeches, civil rights marches, etc. . . . Waiting was more a statement of<br />
the status quo of the gendered division of labor (women’s work) and a drama of a women’s<br />
(supposed) passive role in life as experienced in the modern white Western world.<br />
<strong>The</strong> collaborative welcome-waiting text looks at Waiting very differently—as a possible work of<br />
solidarity, of being with others, in like-minded expectation, coalitions and struggles. Thus, I<br />
think it has everything to do with the state of identity and gender politics today, as well as<br />
world-wide conditions of exclusion, emigration, imprisonment, gender discrimination and<br />
violence, racism, and sexism. I imagine welcome-waiting as an action of recognition, welcoming<br />
and making common cause with others. It is about a kind of self-care that sees the self as<br />
inextricably connected with other sentient beings and the world. Corny as this might sound it is<br />
what “loving” means to me. It is for this reason also that I think it could be meaningfully<br />
connected to “welcoming” in the sense of active invitation, engagement and connection (not<br />
just of “tolerance”). It is overwhelming to think of how many prisoners and refugees are<br />
“waiting” all over our country and the world. 3<br />
Supplementing Wilding’s comments, Lê has eloquently detailed their collaborative process for welcome<br />
-waiting:<br />
As for how the collaboration evolved, artist-scholar Michelle Dizon asked me to write poem in<br />
response to a series of National Geographic images, in which she excised the original text,<br />
………. …..<br />
29
highlighting the implicit gendered, racial and sexual structures of the archive. Appropriating<br />
these textual fragments, the extended postcolonial poem unearths and connects the long<br />
shadows of the U.S. empire, intimacy, violence then and now. Faith and I then collaborated on<br />
a “performative reading” of this piece, selecting key moments, and adding music and gesture<br />
to think through the state of refugees then and now, and the highly political personal acts of<br />
waiting (as subalterns, refugees, immigrants), and welcoming each other. 4<br />
Wilding additionally offered to bring her copy of another documentary on Womanhouse, Lynn<br />
Littman’s Womanhouse Is Not a Home, which aired on Los Angeles public television in 1972, for a<br />
screening during the exhibition. Like her artist mentor Judy Chicago, Faith Wilding challenged us to<br />
expand our thinking about F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> and helped make it a better show with<br />
richer programming. 5<br />
<strong>In</strong> order to call attention to the fact that Womanhouse had been created by young women artists who<br />
were at the time also students, the Exhibition Collective sought to feature at least one rising young<br />
contemporary feminist artist who was either a current student or a recent graduate. More specifically,<br />
we wanted our exhibition to raise awareness about intergenerational issues within feminism by<br />
encouraging gallery visitors to reflect on how feminist issues have changed since Womanhouse. We<br />
immediately thought of Emma Sulkowicz, who performed her durational feminist Mattress<br />
Performance (2014-2015) while she was an undergraduate at Columbia University. We invited<br />
Sulkowicz, who was a Whitney Fellow during the 2016-2017, to exhibit her work in addition to doing a<br />
performance. She not only agreed, but expressed interested in collaborating with another young<br />
feminist artist and graduate student, Violet Overn, who has become known for her performative<br />
photographic self-portraits staging her passive resistance in front of fraternity houses in protest of<br />
campus rape culture. 6<br />
Additional featured artists included Sheila Pree Bright, whom Leisel Whitlock helped to bring into the<br />
exhibition. Priscilla Otani helped bring in Rokudenaishiko, the Japanese artist who was jailed in Japan<br />
for her vulva-themed or “manko” art. Otani also helped bring in the renowned artist Ester Hernandez.<br />
Finally, I invited my San Francisco State colleague and Guggenheim award recipient Cheryl Dunye to<br />
exhibit her important short film, Black Is Blue (2014).<br />
Originally I had only signed on to help with featured artist invitations and negotiations. My tasks<br />
quickly multiplied as I found it incredibly rewarding to witness the ever-growing buzz and interest<br />
about the show.<br />
I quickly discovered that with expansion came an exponentially greater workload. Priscilla Otani, who<br />
along with Leisel Whitlock served as the exhibition’s project managers, asked me to take curatorial<br />
responsibility for “Revisiting Womanhouse.”<br />
30
As the juror Shannon Rose Riley finalized her selections, the Exhibition Collective brainstormed a<br />
number of ideas about how the gallery could reference the original Womanhouse installation, which<br />
had been housed in an abandoned Los Angeles mansion that the Womanhouse artists renovated from<br />
November 1971 to January 1972. Would we, or perhaps more accurately, could we, “update” any of<br />
the Womanhouse rooms in the gallery? We quickly concluded that trying to recreate any part of the<br />
original Womanhouse installation in an art gallery would be neither prudent nor feasible.<br />
But what about “Revisiting Womanhouse”? As its curator I had a very clear vision about should be done<br />
to the borrowed office space. I wanted to “revisit Womanhouse” foregrounding, rather than covering<br />
up, the fact that the space is actually a gallery office. <strong>In</strong> so doing, I wished to underscore both visually<br />
and materially how women’s relations to their homes have changed over the past 45 years by creating<br />
a living space that did not yet exist at the time of the original Womanhouse exhibition.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n and Now<br />
At this point it would be worthwhile to review the situation for the majority of American ciswomen<br />
during the early 1970s. To gain a better understanding of the historical context of Womanhouse, we<br />
have to turn to what has been widely acknowledged as one of its primary sources, Betty Friedan’s<br />
watershed 1963 book <strong>The</strong> Feminine Mystique. Friedan pointed out that the home has been historically<br />
and cross-culturally gendered as female, particularly after World War II with the normalization of the<br />
presumptive white stay-at-home middle-class suburban heterosexual American wife and mother.<br />
Friedan termed this situation, with its insidious consequences for women, “the problem that has no<br />
name.” 7 Womanhouse addressed this problem with its critical interrogations of the home as a<br />
gendered “female space.”<br />
Over the years Womanhouse has been inaccurately derided by some critics for its putative biological<br />
determinism or essentialism given its attention to ciswomen’s biological functions such as<br />
menstruation and its psychological depictions of women’s despair and feelings of invisibility. More<br />
recently it has been vindicated, finding its rightful place within art history not only as the first major<br />
feminist installation but also, according to Temma Balducci, as an early feminist deconstruction of the<br />
idea of home as “dollhouse” with its parodic performative iterations of women’s stereotypical roles. 8<br />
An alternative, more sociological-based interpretation would reconsider how in the early 1970s the<br />
home was at least demographically still the domain of women. According to the U.S. Department of<br />
Labor’s website, which offers longitudinal data regarding the U.S. labor force since the 1950s based on<br />
its Bureau of Labor Statistics Surveys, only 43.9 percent of American women worked outside the home<br />
in 1972. 9 Despite the fact that historically African American women have always worked at a higher<br />
percentage than any other ethnic group in the U.S., according to Bureau of Labor Statistics Surveys only<br />
48.7 percent of African American women worked in 1972. Even as some may question the accuracy of<br />
these survey results particularly for working class women of color, it is relatively safe to assume that in<br />
1972 the majority of American women were at least presumed or expected to be homemakers.<br />
31
Suffice it to say that women’s place and status in the home are very different today. According to the<br />
Department of Labor’s statistics, in 2015 the majority of all American women sixteen and older (56.7%)<br />
worked outside of home. <strong>In</strong> 2015 59.7% of African American women worked. 10 <strong>The</strong> percentages are<br />
even higher for mothers. <strong>In</strong> 2015 the overwhelming majority of American mothers of children under<br />
the age of 18, married or not, worked (69.9%). 11<br />
<strong>The</strong> Rise of Multipurpose Live-Work Spaces<br />
As women have increasingly worked outside the home, clear divides between home and work have<br />
irrevocably eroded, especially with the increase in part-time work, outsourcing, freelancing, and<br />
telecommuting. According to the Department of Labor’s American Time Use Survey, 24 percent of<br />
employed people did some or all of their work at home in 2015. 12 Not only has work crept into the<br />
home, but it is no longer limited to a designated area, such as a home office or, to borrow from Virginia<br />
Woolf, a room of one’s own. Artist couple Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison made this last point<br />
abundantly clear already in 1983 with their performance installation, <strong>The</strong> Work Place at Home, which<br />
recreated their living room at their home in San Diego at the Long Beach Museum. <strong>The</strong> Harrisons sat in<br />
red chairs facing each other and worked during the At Home exhibition, which was an investigation of<br />
the home a decade after Womanhouse. 13 More than thirty years after the Harrisons’s performance,<br />
work emails are answered compulsively while watching television or minding the children (even when<br />
they shouldn’t). <strong>The</strong> home has mutated into multiple multipurpose live-work spaces. Reflecting this<br />
recent spatial reconfiguration of the “traditional home,” the space of “Revisiting Womanhouse”<br />
depicts a hypothetical working mother’s multipurpose live-work space where art is also displayed.<br />
Setting Up “Revisiting Womanhouse”<br />
Curating and installing “Revisiting Womanhouse” was a joint effort. Priscilla Otani and Leisel Whitlock<br />
helped me keep on track with the many logistical details. With their expertise, exhibition volunteers<br />
Colette Standish and Josefin Jansson contributed greatly to the installation of and arrangement of the<br />
artwork with “Revisiting Womanhouse.” Exhibition volunteer Linda Kattwinkel contributed several key<br />
curatorial aspects of the space.<br />
<strong>In</strong> the “Revisiting Womanhouse” space, Colette Standish, Josefin Jansson, and I repurposed some of<br />
the office furniture and equipment. For example, we reclaimed a table that typically functions as a<br />
desk. On the table was a binder of readings about Womanhouse, selected by me but beautifully<br />
assembled by Linda Kattwinkel, who also graciously and dutifully cleared all the copyright permissions.<br />
Linda Kattwinkel also proposed the idea of pink lighting in the space. Turned out that while it was<br />
possible, the lighting didn’t look quite right. Priscilla Otani suggested correctly that a small table lamp<br />
with a pink bulb next to the binder on the table would do the trick. Otani even located and purchased<br />
the specialty bulb. <strong>The</strong> lamp bathed the space with a soft pink glow—an appreciative nod to the pink<br />
Nurturant Kitchen of Womanhouse created by Susan Frazier, Vicki Hodgetts, and Robin Weltsch.<br />
32
A row of white cubby storage units adorned the back wall of the space. Usually, binders, gallery<br />
supplies, and office supplies can be found in the cubbyholes. We added additional office supplies such<br />
as a large three-hole puncher and blank notebooks. Gallery and exhibition supplies such as tape and<br />
scissors were displayed in plastic bins.<br />
Relevant books about feminist art and communication styles were placed in several cubbyholes to<br />
create a tiny library that visitors could peruse at their leisure. <strong>In</strong>cluded in the makeshift library was a<br />
reproduction of the original Womanhouse catalog, which was exhibited on loan by Linda Kattwinkel.<br />
Behind the table, a flat screen monitor placed on one of the back cubby units played continuously<br />
Joanna Demetrakas’s 1974 documentary, Womanhouse. <strong>The</strong> iconic film documented not only the<br />
installation but also the performances that took place, such as Faith Wilding’s Waiting as well as Karen<br />
Le-Cocq and Nancy Youdelman’s joint performance Lea’s Room.<br />
During our early email exchanges Judy Chicago suggested that Demetrakas’s Womanhouse be included<br />
as a featured artist in the F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>, and for her suggestion (among numerous<br />
others) I am eternally grateful. Not only does the film provide viewers with a sense of the experience of<br />
visiting Womanhouse, but its continuous play in “Revisiting Womanhouse” was a reminder of how<br />
much moving images on screens have invaded the domestic realm.<br />
Two office chairs were strategically placed next to the table in “Revisiting Womanhouse.” Visitors could<br />
sit at the table and look at art, read the binder, view the video, or do other things such as converse,<br />
rest, or post selfies on social media from their smart phones.<br />
What was very important to me from a curatorial standpoint, was that the objects in the cubbyholes<br />
would be arranged (or not arranged, depending on your point of view) in a ever-so-slightly disorderly<br />
fashion. <strong>The</strong> “Revisiting Womanhouse” space was to look, as much as possible, utilitarian and<br />
purposeful, as a hypothetical lived-in room.<br />
One could say that the space of “Revisiting Womanhouse” itself was curated as an installation or<br />
environment that could evoke personal memories of home for each gallery visitor.<br />
Nonetheless, to claim that “Revisiting Womanhouse” was an installation would be inaccurate because<br />
the room’s primary function remained as an exhibition space where numerous artworks were<br />
displayed.<br />
Making Visible the Psychology of Women’s Immaterial Labor<br />
<strong>The</strong> Exhibition Collective was interested in probing how societal changes since 1972 have affected<br />
women. <strong>In</strong>deed, the Exhibition Collective engaged in an exploration of how to express these effects<br />
…….<br />
33
during its process of choosing the exhibition’s title. I was aware of the concepts of “affective labor” and<br />
“emotional labor” having seen the Berkeley sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild speak in May 2016 at<br />
the Oakland Book Fair. I had read Hochschild’s 1989 book with Anne Machung, <strong>The</strong> Second Shift, in<br />
which Hochschild demonstrates that women continue to be burdened more with “second shifts,” i.e.,<br />
domestic labor, after their “official” workdays are done. Moreover, as Hochschild has pointed out,<br />
despite all advances towards gender equality women remain the primary caretakers of their homes. 14<br />
Previously in her 1983 book <strong>The</strong> Managed Heart Hochschild examined how women are responsible for<br />
their families’ private emotional management home once they return home after performing<br />
“emotional labor” at work, i.e., smiling and acting upbeat to create positive emotional experiences for<br />
others. Such immaterial labor, Hochschild argues, comes at a psychological cost. 15 <strong>In</strong>klings of that cost<br />
can be discerned in many of the works exhibited throughout F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>.<br />
Featured Art in “Revisiting Womanhouse”<br />
Within “Revisiting Womanhouse” featured artworks were exhibited along with a small number of<br />
artworks by the national artists selected by the juror, Shannon Rose Riley. <strong>In</strong>stallation curator Karen<br />
Gutfreund selected the juried works that were exhibited in “Revisiting Womanhouse.”<br />
Featured artist Nancy Youdelman’s three works exhibited in the “Revisiting Womanhouse” space were<br />
literally and figuratively, brilliant. <strong>In</strong>deed, her works were strategically placed to catch the eyes of<br />
gallery visitors as they entered the space.<br />
I selected Youdelman’s coat-shaped sculpture, She Made It Herself (2005) as it immediately reminded<br />
me of one of Hillary Clinton’s signature coat jackets. I was not alone in anticipating incorrectly during<br />
the summer of 2016 that Mrs. Clinton would be elected the first women American President a month<br />
before the F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>’s opening. She Made It Herself was created by the artist as a<br />
tribute to her mother, a seamstress, and embedded in the work are sewing tools such as safety pins<br />
and buttons. Photographs of Youdelman’s mother highlight the works interplay between personal,<br />
familial, social, and universal histories. She Made it Herself celebrates the multiple “hats” her mother<br />
wore during her life, which made the piece very “fitting” for “Revisiting Womanhouse.” <strong>In</strong> the context<br />
of the exhibition, its apt title underscores the importance of acknowledging the labor of working<br />
mothers.<br />
Youdelman generously offered to exhibit two more works, Speaking in Colors (2015) and Ice Warrior<br />
(2015), both of which address gender identity and childhood. Speaking in Colors, with its carefully<br />
arranged discarded costume jewelry, suggests alternatives to impulsive (and often hurtful)<br />
communication.<br />
For those of us of a certain age, it is nearly impossible to view Ice Warrior and not immediately be<br />
reminded of Xena, the warrior princess of the popular 1990s television series of the same name. <strong>The</strong><br />
…..<br />
34
ejeweled doll appears ready for combat. With her defensive stance, Ice Warrior is both resilient and<br />
resplendent in her dazzling self-care.<br />
Ice Warrior’s gestures of self-defense and self-care parallels those of the featured artists whose<br />
respective artworks were displayed in the main gallery: Ester Hernandez’s humorous assemblage El<br />
Palote (<strong>The</strong> Rolling Pin) (2016), Violet Overn’s photographs #2 and #5 (2016), and Emma Sulkowicz’s<br />
Newspaper Bodies (Look Mom, I’m on the Front Page!) series (2015). Each artist’s unique response to<br />
possible and actual threats of domestic and sexual aggression, abuse, and violence within typical<br />
domestic spaces, such as the kitchen, as well as college “home away from home” spaces, such as the<br />
fraternity house and the dorm room, is a revelation as well as a testimony to women’s strength,<br />
creativity, and resilience. What is interesting is that all these works in very different ways attest to the<br />
fact that domestic spaces are not always safe spaces.<br />
Youdelman was not the only featured artist who showcased children’s clothing and toys such as dolls.<br />
<strong>In</strong>deed, the importance of childhood domesticity for gender identity emerged as a central theme<br />
throughout F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>. A striking example is Plastic Bodies (2003), Sheila Pree<br />
Bright’s digitally manipulated photograph of a hybrid Barbie calls attention to the challenges of identity<br />
formation for young African American girls.<br />
We were honored to include featured artist Karen LeCocq’s iconic Feather Cunt (1971, remade 1996)<br />
pillow, which added to a sense of comfort, sensuality, and eroticism to the space.<br />
We converted a metal file cabinet into a display table for Rokudenashiko’s numerous artworks and<br />
artifacts, some of which were placed on top of kitschy pink and red heart-shaped paper doilies that I<br />
managed to find at a neighborhood dollar store. Aside from Vagina Cellphone Covers, Rokudenashiko<br />
has transformed her plastic vagina mold (one of which was also on display) to create other utilitarian<br />
objects, ranging from a whimsical <strong>In</strong>sect Cage Manko (2012) to toys, such as her Remote-Controlled<br />
Gundaman (2012).<br />
Rokudenashiko’s 2016 graphic novel about her arrests and trials in Japan, What Is Obscenity: <strong>The</strong> Story<br />
of a Good for Nothing Artist and Her Pussy, was also displayed, as were her Free Manko pins, which<br />
were available for sale. Her so-called “pussy art,” which we had been a bit concerned would be<br />
considered a bit frivolous, gained unexpected and new political significance after Donald Trump’s “grab<br />
them by the pussy” remarks that were released by <strong>The</strong> Washington Post on October 8, 2016.<br />
Rokudenashiko’s <strong>The</strong> Buddha Manko (2012) offers meditative contemplation as well as peaceful<br />
resistance within ongoing gender wars. Situated in a staged domestic space, <strong>The</strong> Buddha Manko<br />
reminds the visitor of the importance of finding a place for peace, meditation and contemplation in the<br />
home despite our busy—and at times, chaotic—lives.<br />
Such ideas are hard to achieve, particularly for working woman artists who are also mothers.<br />
35
<strong>The</strong> slightly disordered books and art supplies on the back shelves were in my mind to reflect women’s<br />
ongoing struggle to “have it all.” Moreover, the minute disarray was also meant to suggest that it is<br />
perfectly fine to not obsess about every detail when thinking about the bigger picture.<br />
Rokudenaishiko’s work points to the Buddhist practice of gratitude, as not everyone is fortunate to<br />
have a home. After the 2008 economic collapse many who were previously securely housed had their<br />
homes foreclosed. Economic precarity has resulted in many living one paycheck or illness away from<br />
homelessness. A defiant response to the economic injustices and threats of bank(ster) foreclosure is<br />
addressed in “Revisiting Womanhouse” by an acrylic painting that Shannon Rose Riley selected as one<br />
of the juried works, Phoebe Ackley’s My House (2016).<br />
<strong>In</strong> her short film Black Is Blue (2014), featured artist Cheryl Dunye considers the challenges of<br />
homelessness faced by a transman of color named Black. With its challenges to transphobia, economic<br />
injustice, racism, and heteronormativity, Black Is Blue can be regarded simultaneously as a<br />
comprehensive critical response to Womanhouse, an invitation to viewers to check their own privileges<br />
and biases, and an intersectional queer transfeminist call to action and activism. Black Is Blue was<br />
shown outside of “Revisiting Womanhouse” as the featured presentation for the exhibition’s video<br />
showcase that took place at the Ninth Street <strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center on the evening of January 14 th ,<br />
2017.<br />
Tidy Aftermaths<br />
<strong>The</strong> next time I returned to the gallery after the exhibition opening I observed that the cubby holes in<br />
“Revisiting Womanhouse” had been tidied up. Apparently someone did not approve of the disordered<br />
books, the cluttered papers, and haphazard piles of supplies. Everything had been straightened up<br />
perfectly. Some of the more unsightly items were missing or had been removed, such as a Trader Joe’s<br />
reusable plastic shopping bag that I stashed for safekeeping into one of the cubbies as the opening was<br />
about to start. <strong>The</strong> bag contained my personal exhibition notebook with all of my exhibition notes that<br />
I had been accumulating for six months. After several extensive searches the shopping bag’s fate as<br />
trash was a foregone conclusion.<br />
It wasn’t the first time objects in a gallery were thrown out by mistake.<br />
<strong>In</strong> 2001 a cleaner at Eyestorm gallery in London threw out the impromptu installation that Damien<br />
Hirst arranged during a pre-opening reception party. <strong>The</strong> installation consisted of ashtrays, coffee cups,<br />
beer bottles, paintbrushes, and more. Hirst’s installation was allegedly a recreation of an artist<br />
studio...and arguably a reflection of the presumptive chaos of the artistic process of some artists. 16<br />
<strong>In</strong> 2004 a janitor at the Tate Britain in London threw into a compactor a clear plastic bag filled with<br />
crumbled paper and cardboard, presuming it was trash. Turned out it was part of the installation<br />
Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art by the late artist Gustav Metzger, who<br />
…..<br />
36
is known for coining the term “auto-destructive art.” <strong>The</strong> bag was found damaged, so the artist<br />
replaced it. 17<br />
More recently, in 2015, a recently hired team of cleaners at Muesion Bozen-Bolzano in northern Italy<br />
discarded 300 empty champagne bottles and other items such as confetti and cigarette butts that were<br />
part of Sara Goldschmied and Eleonara Chiari’s Dove Andiamo a Ballare Queste Sera? (Where Shall We<br />
Go Dancing Tonight?), mistaking the installation for the detritus left after a gallery reception. Since the<br />
materials, which the cleaners had sorted out for recycling, had not yet been picked up to be thrown<br />
out for good the installation was able to be quickly reinstalled. 18<br />
I found the minute changes to “Revisiting Womanhouse” intriguing. <strong>The</strong> alterations opened up an<br />
unintended durational aspect, as the exhibition space changed over time. Granted the tidying up was<br />
not a big deal—it was not a violation of the integrity of the space as when a self-identified housewife<br />
from South Wales attempted to make the bed and clean the sheets in Tracey Emin’s installation My<br />
Bed when it was first exhibited at the Tate Museum in 1999. 19 Nevertheless, the every-so-slightly<br />
altered “Revisiting Womanhouse” as a perfectly arranged space communicated something other than<br />
what I had intended.<br />
That someone made a judgment that the room’s arrangements were not complete or “neat” enough<br />
speaks volumes about how women (and here I am making some gender assumptions) feel compelled<br />
to clean up after others.<br />
Rather than try to “fix” the room and return it to its previous, originally intended arrangements, I<br />
chose to let it go. I also elected not to say anything. What would making the tidying up an issue<br />
accomplish? It didn’t really matter who had done the tidying. It could have been anyone: a gallery<br />
visitor, a fellow exhibition committee member, one of the exhibition artists, a gallery employee, or one<br />
of my student volunteers. I would have bet money that whoever straightened up probably believed<br />
that I was too much of a slob to notice.<br />
I’m also pretty certain that whoever cleaned up was concerned about the show’s aesthetics, not<br />
realizing what the aesthetics informing “Revisiting Womanhouse” actually were.<br />
Admittedly, I curated “Revisiting Womanhouse” not considering the possibility that the space was still<br />
being used as an office since gallery viewing hours for the public were limited. <strong>In</strong> retrospect I<br />
acknowledge that what was viewed by some as a critical provocation for the exhibition could have<br />
been seen by others as a deterrent for business as usual.<br />
<strong>The</strong> experience of curating “Revisiting Womanhouse” spotlighted for me perhaps one of the bitterest<br />
political lessons of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Differing perspectives can have consequences,<br />
that can range from nothingburgers—such as the tidying up in “Revisiting Womanhouse”—to<br />
……………..<br />
37
catastrophic global crises.<br />
“Revisiting Womanhouse” was never untidy or unclear, unlike the current political situation,<br />
particularly for women, people of color, LGBTIQ people, and the undocumented. But its few hints of<br />
untidiness (while they lasted) were intentional, signifying the often underlying, unspoken, and<br />
unvarnished truths from multiple feminist perspectives that the exhibition as a whole sought to bring<br />
to light.<br />
NOTES<br />
___________________________________<br />
1<br />
Ara Osterweil. "Fuck You! A Feminist Guide to Surviving the Art World." Artforum <strong>In</strong>ternational 54, no. 10 (Summer 2016):<br />
320-329.<br />
2<br />
As I was finishing up writing this essay in late July 2017, Anthony Scaramucci’s obscenity-laced rant to a New Yorker reporter<br />
was published. <strong>The</strong> New York Times editorial board decided to write about their decision to publish his language:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Times published Mr. Scaramucci’s profanity after top editors, including our executive editor, Dean Baquet,<br />
discussed whether it was proper. We decided that it was newsworthy that a top aide to President Trump used such<br />
language.<br />
We also knew that many of our readers would want to know what Mr. Scaramucci said, and we did not want them<br />
to have to search elsewhere to find out (<strong>The</strong> Reader Center, “Why <strong>The</strong> Times Published Scaramucci’s Profanities,”<br />
<strong>The</strong> New York Times, 28 July, 2017, accessed August 1, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/reader-center/<br />
times-published-scaramucci-profanities.html?_r=0).<br />
It is interesting to note that over one year earlier in Jun 2016 the NCWCA Exhibition Collective had similar conversations about<br />
using profane language.<br />
3<br />
Faith Wilding, email message to author, August 24, 2016.<br />
4<br />
Lê adds: “This text for Michelle Dizon’s images has been revised for the performative readings by Faith Wilding and Việt<br />
Lê for the following exhibitions/events: F*ck U! in the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>, Ninth Street <strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center, San Francisco<br />
(January 14, 2017); Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier (January 29, 2017) and Ours Is a City of Writers, Los Angeles<br />
Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Art Park, Los Angeles (April 4, 2017). Việt Lê, email message to author, August 2, 2017.<br />
5<br />
As part of its public programing, F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> held a Womanhouse Reunion on January 13, 2017 at the<br />
Ninth Street <strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center that featured screenings of both Womanhouse Is Not a Home and Demetrakas’s<br />
Womanhouse. After the screenings I moderated a discussion panel with Faith Wilding, Johanna Demetrakas, and Karen Le-<br />
Cocq. Wilding performed welcome-waiting with Việt Lê, and with collected images by Michelle Dizon at the Ninth Street<br />
<strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center on January 14, 2017.<br />
6<br />
<strong>In</strong> addition to showing artwork, Sulkowicz and Overn debuted their Dadaist conceptual performance Rulers during the<br />
exhibition’s opening on December 17, 2016.<br />
38
7<br />
Betty Friedan, <strong>The</strong> Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1963).<br />
8<br />
Temma Balducci, “Revisiting “Womanhouse”: Welcome to the (Deconstructed) `Dollhouse,’” Woman’s Art Journal 27, no. 2<br />
(Fall-Winter, 2006): 17.<br />
9<br />
“Labor force participation rate by sex, race and Hispanic ethnicity, 1948-2015 annual averages,” Graph by Women’ Bureau,<br />
Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Employment Statistics, accessed<br />
July 30, 2017, https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/LForce_Race_sex_Hispanic_Ethnicity_48_15_txt.<br />
10<br />
“Labor Force Participation Rate by Sex, Race and Hispanic Ethnicity, 2015 Annual Averages and 2024 Projections, Graph by<br />
Women’ Bureau, Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Employment<br />
Statistics, accessed July 31, 2017, https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/Laborforce_par_rate_sex_race_hisp_ethnic_2015_txt.htm.<br />
11<br />
“Employed Parents by Full- and Part-Time Status, Sex and Age of Youngest Child 2015 Annual Averages,” Graph by<br />
Women’s Bureau, Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Employment<br />
Statistics, accessed July 31, 2017, https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/<br />
Employed_parents_full_part_time_sex_age_young_child_2015_txt.htm.<br />
12<br />
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, <strong>The</strong> Economics Daily, “24 Percent of Employed People Did Some or All<br />
of <strong>The</strong>ir Work at Home in 2015 on the <strong>In</strong>ternet,” July 8, 2016, accessed July 31, 2017, https://www.bls.gov/opub/<br />
ted/2016/24-percent-of-employed-people-did-some-or-all-of-their-work-at-home-in-2015.htm<br />
13<br />
Arlene Raven, At Home (Long Beach, CA: Long Beach Museum of Art, 1983), 50.<br />
14<br />
Arlie Russell Hochschild and Anne Machung, <strong>The</strong> Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home (New York,<br />
N.Y.: Viking, 1989).<br />
15<br />
Arlie Russell Hochschild, <strong>The</strong> Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling, Updated ed. (Berkeley and London:<br />
University of California Press, 2012).<br />
16<br />
Warren Hoge, “Art Imitates Life, Perhaps Too Closely,” 20 July 2001, <strong>The</strong> New York Times, July 30, 2017, http://<br />
www.nytimes.com/2001/10/20/arts/art-imitates-life-perhaps-too-closely.html; “Cleaner Bins Rubbish Bag Artwork, BBC<br />
News, 27 August 2004, accessed July 27, 2017, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3604278.stm.<br />
17<br />
“Cleaner Bins Rubbish Bag Artwork.”<br />
18<br />
Sarah Cascone, “Janitors Mistakenly Throw Out Champagne Bottle Art <strong>In</strong>stallation,” ArtNet News, October 26, 2015,<br />
accessed July 20, 2017, https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/janitor-throws-out-art-installation-347937; Nick Squires, “Art<br />
<strong>In</strong>stallation in Italy Ended up in the Bin by Cleaners Who Thought It Was Rubbish, <strong>The</strong> Telegraph, October 26, 2015, accessed<br />
July 20, 2017, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11956330/Art-installation-in-Italy-ended-up-in-the<br />
-bin-by-cleaners-who-thought-it-was-rubbish.html<br />
19<br />
“Cleaner Bins Rubbish Bag Artwork.”<br />
39
40
41<br />
FEATURED ARTISTS
Sheila Pree Bright<br />
Plastic Bodies series<br />
Photography<br />
Size, variable<br />
2003<br />
*On loan from the Collection of Leisel and Russell Petersen<br />
42
43
Johanna Demetrakas<br />
WOMANHOUSE<br />
Color, DVD<br />
47 minutes<br />
1974<br />
WOMANHOUSE is an historic documentary about one of the most important feminist cultural events of<br />
the 1970s. Judy Chicago (best-known as the creator of <strong>The</strong> Dinner Party and Miriam Shapiro rented an<br />
old Hollywood mansion and altered its interior through decor and set-pieces to "search out and reveal<br />
the female experience...the dreams and fantasies of women as they sewed, cooked, washed and<br />
ironed away their lives." WOMANHOUSE is a fascinating historical look at feminism, its reception in the<br />
1970s, and the ever-important relationship between art and social change.<br />
44
45
Cheryl Dunye<br />
Black Is Blue<br />
Drama/Short film<br />
21 minutes<br />
2014<br />
Black Is Blue is a short narrative that tells the story of Black—an African American Transman, who<br />
works as a security guard inside an apartment complex in present day Oakland, California. On the night<br />
of a “stud party,” Black is forced to confront his pre-transition past, struggling to make his outside<br />
match his inside.<br />
46
47
Ester Hernandez<br />
El Palote (<strong>The</strong> Rolling Pin)<br />
Mixed media assemblage<br />
30 x 22 x 5 inches<br />
<strong>In</strong> this assemblage, I attempt to explore and keep alive issues of resilience, domestic violence/right to<br />
self-defense for self and family, PTSD /anti-war and its impact on women. I have been told by Meso-<br />
American anthropologist that this palote giving tradition dates back thousands of years and is part of a<br />
beautiful shared women-centered ritual for passing on knowledge for maintaining personal respect,<br />
dignity and survival, especially in times of war.<br />
48
49
Karen LeCocq<br />
Feather Cunt<br />
Wood, plastic, velvet, feathers<br />
12 x 10 x 19 inches<br />
1971 remade 1996<br />
<strong>In</strong> the Feminist Art Program at California <strong>In</strong>stitute of the Arts in the early 1970s, we were exploring the<br />
experience of what it means to be a woman. We were looking at societal stereotypes, the positive,<br />
negative and downright degrading. We explored the "bad" names and slurs that labeled and degraded<br />
women, reframing them to be positive even celebrated. "Feather" may be "a cunt," but she is lovely,<br />
she proud of her name and cannot be harmed by the hateful words of others.<br />
50
51
Violet Overn<br />
#2<br />
Digital Photography<br />
Variable<br />
2016<br />
I wanted to visualize the forgotten, to capture the crime scene when no one else could, to<br />
trespass on the institution.<br />
I wanted to represent a body, a female body, a female body that had been harmed.<br />
I wanted for my body to symbolize a non-violent protest, a sit-in, against the institution, a<br />
male-power driven institution.<br />
I wanted to say something—someone needed to say something.<br />
We needed to start somewhere. We need to keep saying something. We need to keep acting.<br />
52
53
Violet Overn<br />
#5<br />
Digital Photography<br />
Variable<br />
2016<br />
I wanted to visualize the forgotten, to capture the crime scene when no one else could, to<br />
trespass on the institution.<br />
I wanted to represent a body, a female body, a female body that had been harmed.<br />
I wanted for my body to symbolize a non-violent protest, a sit-in, against the institution, a<br />
male-power driven institution.<br />
I wanted to say something—someone needed to say something.<br />
We needed to start somewhere. We need to keep saying something. We need to keep acting.<br />
54
55
Emma Sulkowicz<br />
Bed<br />
From Series, Newspaper Bodies<br />
(Look Mom, I’m On the Front Page!)<br />
Silkscreen on inkjet print<br />
(Limited edition of 8 per print, 8 sets of 4 prints)<br />
25.75 x 24 inches<br />
2015<br />
Newspaper Bodies (Look, Mom. I'm On <strong>The</strong> Front Page!) is a four-part silkscreen series. Parts 1 and<br />
2, Bed and You can take my story, but my body won't be overwritten, feature a reproduction of a New<br />
York Times article from May 4, 2014. This was the first front page NYT article to report on the story of<br />
Sulkowicz's alleged attack and Columbia University's adjudication of her complaint. Parts 2 and 3, Fuck<br />
Her. Believe This. and Attack, feature a reproduction of the second front page New York Times article,<br />
from December 22, 2014, which presents the accused's version of the story. <strong>The</strong> silkscreened images<br />
reflect upon and call the papers' textual depictions into question, reminding us of the ubiquity of bias.<br />
<strong>The</strong> overlaid silkscreen images, like the reporting they satirize, depict their subjects as<br />
caricatures, mirroring the flattened representations that circulate in the media.<br />
56
57
Emma Sulkowicz<br />
You can take my story, but my body won’t be overwritten<br />
From Series, Newspaper Bodies<br />
(Look Mom, I’m On the Front Page!)<br />
Silkscreen on inkjet print<br />
(Limited edition of 8 per print, 8 sets of 4 prints)<br />
Silkscreen on inkjet print<br />
(Limited edition of 8 per print, 8 sets of 4 prints)<br />
25.75 x 24 inches<br />
2015<br />
58
59
Emma Sulkowicz<br />
Fuck her. Believe this.<br />
From Series, Newspaper Bodies<br />
(Look Mom, I’m On the Front Page!)<br />
Silkscreen on inkjet print<br />
(Limited edition of 8 per print, 8 sets of 4 prints)<br />
25.75 x 24 inches<br />
2015<br />
60
61
Emma Sulkowicz<br />
Attack<br />
From Series, Newspaper Bodies<br />
(Look Mom, I’m On the Front Page!)<br />
Silkscreen on inkjet print<br />
(Limited edition of 8 per print, 8 sets of 4 prints)<br />
25.75 x 24 inches<br />
2015<br />
62
63
64
Mannichiwa, America! I am MANKO (pussy) artist Rokudenashiko (Megumi Igarashi)<br />
Rokudenashi means “useless” or “good-for-nothing” in Japanese. Japanese mangaka make silly pen<br />
names for themselves all the time, and I am no different. I came up with this dumb penname without<br />
much to it when I started my career in “reality manga.” Manko Art, as it happens, was also just a silly<br />
thing I did for the publicity, but I was NOT prepared for the reaction from Japanese men. “It’s dirty!”<br />
“It’s gross!” “I bet it stinks.” they spewed at me. Others would leer at me: “Show me more!” “You<br />
perverted little girl!” “Let me fuck you.”<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is something wrong when what amounts to an organ in every cisgender female, is treated with<br />
such overdetermined derision or obsession. Come to think, even the utterance of “manko” was a<br />
taboo, and absolutely forbidden since I was a child, and I’ve found myself respecting the archaic<br />
convention against saying it, even despite myself.<br />
Since I’ve started my work in Manko Art, I’ve been fighting back against the old men who complain<br />
about it. I’ve decided to keep making even more ridiculous work, with all seriousness. Though this was<br />
kind of a joke at first, now, I am joking with every ounce of my body and soul. My ideas have infuriated<br />
a bunch of small-minded men, but the number of people who think it’s fun, silly, happy and hilarious<br />
has also grown.<br />
Still, I have been arrested twice by the police in Japan. <strong>The</strong>y’ve claimed my work is an “obscenity that<br />
stimulates reckless sexual impulse” and therefore a crime. <strong>The</strong> claim has caught the attention of the<br />
world and I’ve been asked numerous times by foreign media if artists in Japan can seriously be<br />
prosecuted for something like this.<br />
This is what I always tell them: “Yes, Japan does actually arrest people for this, as I was actually taken<br />
away on Christmas Eve 2014 (December 24). But it is definitely messed up. My Manko is definitely not<br />
obscene. I firmly object to these claim as I do not believe I have done anything wrong, and I will defy<br />
the claim in my own frivolous way.”<br />
Per my word, I am currently fighting these claims in court. I have absolutely no idea what to expect. But<br />
no matter how many times I am arrested, I will never forget the smiling faces, I won’t back down.<br />
Manko is not an unusual or special thing, and it is actually an obvious part of life and that is precisely<br />
why we should care about it. And I swear…the Mankos the police have confiscated and refuse to give<br />
back to me will one day return to my rightful possession, and I will continue to make fun of those very<br />
same police with along the way.<br />
I encourage you to look out for me during this trial process. I frequently update my status on my blog<br />
(6d745.com) as well as my Twitter (@6d745), where I appreciate all your attention.<br />
65<br />
September 2015<br />
Rokudenashiko<br />
(Megumi Igarashi)
Rokudenashiko<br />
Remote-Controlled Gundaman (Remokonde Hashiru! Gandaman)<br />
Plaster, acrylic, remote control<br />
7.5 x 5 x 3.5 inches not including remote control<br />
2013<br />
66
67
Rokudenashiko<br />
<strong>The</strong> Buddha Manko (Daibutsu-man)<br />
Resin, acrylic, diorama figurine<br />
7 x 4 x 5 inches<br />
2012<br />
68
69
Rokudenashiko<br />
<strong>In</strong>sect Cage Manko (Mushikago-man)<br />
Resin diorama figurines<br />
7 x 3 x 3 inches<br />
2012<br />
70
71
Rokudenashiko<br />
Vagina Mold<br />
Plastic mold<br />
72
73
Rokudenashiko<br />
<strong>The</strong> Decorated Pussy Song (Dekoman no Uta)<br />
Video: Director Manko Chijo Tree<br />
Starring Rokudenashiko, Landlady, KinkyHouse<br />
1:07 minutes<br />
2016<br />
74
75
Rokudenashiko<br />
3-D Gundaman<br />
Plaster, acrylic<br />
3D Gundaman (3D Gandaman)<br />
Polyurethane, lacquer<br />
8”H x 4”W x 2.4”D<br />
2014<br />
76
77
Rokudenashiko<br />
Vagina Cellphone Covers<br />
Plastic mold<br />
78
79
Rokudenashiko<br />
A World Where Obscenity Has Become Obscene (Waisetsuno Imiga Okashikunatta Sekai)<br />
Video: Director Manko Chijo Tree<br />
Starring Rokudenashiko, Nobuko, Paisen, Ume, Poppy, Ika, Boss Landlady<br />
4:35 minutes<br />
2016<br />
80
81
Rokudenashiko<br />
Free Manko Pins<br />
Enamel pins<br />
2016<br />
82
83
Faith Wilding with Viêt Lê and Michelle Dizon<br />
welcome—waiting<br />
Performance/Video<br />
10-15 minutes, variable<br />
2017<br />
A discursive intermedia contemplation of the spaces between us, precarity, hospitality, and not being<br />
at home.<br />
84
85
Nancy Youdelman<br />
She Made It Herself<br />
Mixed media relief sculpture<br />
42.5 x 28 x 3 inches<br />
2005<br />
Photo credit: Michael Karibian<br />
She Made It Herself is an artwork that honors my mother and the life she made for herself. It<br />
represents her power as a woman; created from pins, buttons, zippers sewing implements and photos<br />
of from her life, then painted with metallic paints, this dress shape symbolizes the incredible strength<br />
she possessed. She was born in 1913, a time when women were not supposed to be strong. She was a<br />
registered nurse and a talented seamstress; both were “appropriate” based on her gender.<br />
86
87
Nancy Youdelman<br />
Ice Warrior<br />
Mixed media with encaustic<br />
17 x 11 x 6 inches<br />
2015<br />
A forgotten cloth doll is given a new life; she is outfitted in “ice” clear rhinestones with a whisk as a<br />
staff, she is bold and ready for anything.<br />
Photo credit: Michael Karibian<br />
88
89
Nancy Youdelman<br />
Speaking in Colors<br />
Mixed media with encaustic<br />
22 x 24.5 x 4.5 inches<br />
2015<br />
To me, the sparkle of old rhinestone jewelry has a beautiful but sad quality. Pairing it with a child’s<br />
dress, much like the ones I wore in the 1950s elaborates on the sad beauty and the bittersweet memories<br />
of life.<br />
Photo credit: Michael Karibian<br />
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91
ABOUT THE JUROR:<br />
Shannon Rose Riley is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar. She is Professor and Chair of the<br />
Humanities Department at San José State University where she teaches classes in Humanities, Creative<br />
Arts, and American Studies. She has a PhD in Performance Studies and Critical <strong>The</strong>ory from the<br />
University of California, Davis (2006); an MFA in Studio Art (performance, video, installation) from<br />
Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1998); and a BFA in Sculpture and<br />
Art History from Maine College of Art (1995). Professor Riley’s visual and performance works have<br />
been exhibited/staged internationally at numerous venues, including the <strong>In</strong>stitute of Contemporary<br />
Art (Portland, ME), Mobius (Boston), Randolph Street Gallery and Artemisia Gallery (Chicago), the<br />
Cushwa-Leighton Library (Notre Dame), Performance Studies <strong>In</strong>ternational/PSi in Mainz, Germany<br />
(2001) and Stanford (2013), the Festival Nacional de Pequeño Formato (Santa Clara Cuba, 2006), and<br />
Month of Performance Art-Berlin (2013), among others. Dr. Riley continues to perform and record<br />
with the Chicago-based gospel/noise/performance group, ONO and is the author of Performing Race<br />
and Erasure: Cuba, Haiti, & US Culture, 1898-1940 (Palgrave, 2016). Her essays appear in <strong>The</strong>atre<br />
Topics, English Language Notes, Performing Arts Resources, and Baylor Journal of <strong>The</strong>atre and<br />
Performance as well as in the edited collections, Practice as Research in the Arts: Principles, Protocols,<br />
Pedagogies, Resistances (Palgrave, 2013), Kathy Acker and Transnationalism (Cambridge Scholars<br />
Publishing, 2009), and Mapping Landscapes for Performance as Research: Scholarly Acts and Creative<br />
Cartographies, which she co-edited with Lynette Hunter (Palgrave, 2009, 2 nd edition 2014). Her book<br />
reviews appear in <strong>The</strong> Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (2013) and TDR: <strong>The</strong> Drama<br />
Review (2015).<br />
92
JUROR STATEMENT<br />
It has been a great pleasure to jury F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>—I am grateful to NCWCA for the<br />
invitation and to all of the artists who submitted works in response to the call. All told, we received<br />
over 300 submissions in a variety of media—and I had the rather daunting task of selecting no more<br />
than 15% for exhibition. Many excellent pieces were not included, so let me say a bit about my process<br />
and the criteria I kept in mind when making selections.<br />
My first consideration was the strength of the image or the work’s formal power: I responded almost<br />
viscerally to the images that grabbed me in some way—sometimes the pull was immediate and at<br />
other times it built more quietly and persistently. Next, I considered the exhibition theme and how the<br />
work responded to it. I kept in mind that the show intends to serve as “a platform for women to air<br />
their grievances” and as such, I did not turn away from uncomfortable content. I especially looked for<br />
works that are in some dialogue with feminist art of the 1970s—Womanhouse in particular—as well as<br />
for works that speak to our own historical moment. My final consideration was the artist’s written<br />
statement. While I juried the show, the Trump “pussy-grabbing” scandal unfolded, as did his “nasty<br />
woman” comment. <strong>In</strong> the days that followed, “Nasty Woman” was seized as a kind of rallying cry for<br />
yet another feminist stance—and Pussy Riot released their video, “Straight outta Vagina.” <strong>The</strong> timing is<br />
indeed perfect for the theme of this exhibition.<br />
Many of the works confront stereotypical gender roles and challenge just who or what constitutes a<br />
“woman” today. Many deal with the subject matter of abuse: sexual, physical, emotional, domestic,<br />
financial and racial violence; the constant barrage of micro-aggressions; and outright discrimination.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are incredibly brave enactments of the kinds of horror and violence that women, trans, and<br />
genderqueer people as well as people of color experience—these works are not always easy but<br />
demand that we bear witness. Others articulate radical self-care, self-respect, and other savvy<br />
strategies for survival. And of course, there is still a good amount of humor in the works. Like much<br />
feminist art of the 1970s, many of these works are concerned with woman’s labor—whether creative,<br />
productive, domestic, or reproductive—as well as with issues of violence and sexuality. <strong>The</strong>re are<br />
material explorations in textile, self-portraiture, and installation that also harken back to Womanhouse<br />
strategies. One thing becomes clear when looking at the works and reading the statements: and that is<br />
that the personal is still political.<br />
Shannon Rose Riley, juror<br />
November 2, 2016<br />
93
Phoebe Ackley<br />
My House<br />
Acrylic<br />
16 x 20 inches<br />
2016<br />
This woman stands in firm knowledge and possession of her home. Anchored by her children, she<br />
defies the banksters who would rob her of it. My House is a positive affirmation of the right to our<br />
homes. And an indictment of the perverse greed and fraud of the banksters in the ongoing foreclosure<br />
crisis.<br />
94
95
Susan Ahlfs<br />
Susan Elizabeth Ahlfs<br />
Graphite on paper<br />
132 x 50 inches<br />
2013<br />
My Big Brazen Beauties drawing, promotes self acceptance through body acceptance. I use models<br />
who have some low self-esteem or a more negative relationship with their own body and present it in<br />
a view that showcases their natural beauty. <strong>The</strong>se larger than life drawings forces the model and the<br />
viewers to see these bodies empowered while creating the intimacy to view my models as natural,<br />
beautiful beings. This series specifically is meant to challenge the social pressures from society of body<br />
image and what is beautiful.<br />
96
97
MGP Andersen<br />
My and Those<br />
Oil on canvas<br />
21 x 25 inches<br />
2009<br />
<strong>The</strong> girl in My and Those is a commodity. <strong>The</strong> status of women has improved since 1972, but too often<br />
we are still just the playthings and servants of men.<br />
98
99
Yael Azoulay<br />
Please Break My Heart<br />
HD video<br />
18:14 minutes<br />
2016<br />
Auditions for Please Break My Heart<br />
HD video<br />
15:16 minutes<br />
2016<br />
Please Break My Heart examines the power structure within a relationship. It is seemingly a way of<br />
making myself a victim–the result is well known, I am asking to be heartbroken, and therefore my<br />
heartbreaker is the one in control of the situation. However, this is my project, I am the one hiring and<br />
paying the actor and he has signed a contract saying that within a few weeks he must leave my life<br />
forever. It is a way of taking control over my own heart.<br />
100
101
Pamela Belknap<br />
Red Vines: Always Fat Free<br />
Red Vines, red belt<br />
16 x 16 x 8 inches<br />
2016<br />
<strong>The</strong> cherry fragrance stimulated my appetite. <strong>The</strong> cherry red is a delicious looking color. With a stick of<br />
Red Vine, it will be twenty calories each. Without being conscious, I could easily eat the whole box.<br />
However, on the package of the Red Vines, it is labeled as ALWAYS FAT FREE. This sculpture is a<br />
symbolic object of a woman to stay shapely, yet constantly being tempted by sugar. Sugar is fattening,<br />
but the industry has buried the fact. <strong>The</strong> diet industry manipulates women to retain the culturally<br />
favored slim figure.<br />
102
103
Tracy Brown<br />
Rabbit Food<br />
Video<br />
1:37 minutes<br />
2016<br />
Rabbit Food, <strong>The</strong> Dummification of Modern Women illustrates pent up anger and aggression over the<br />
minimization of women’s achievement particularly in film. Far too often in interviews great female<br />
performers are asked the lowest common denominator of questions while their male counterparts are<br />
handed thought provoking, philosophical and existential questions.<br />
104
105
Tracy Brown<br />
Mansplaining, Please Tell Me Bout It Bout It<br />
Video<br />
2:38 minutes<br />
2016<br />
Mansplaining, Tell Me Bout It Bout It pokes at a cultural phenomenon far too many women are familiar<br />
with. <strong>The</strong> short video bitingly and sarcastically points out the absurdity and stupidity of this sexist<br />
mode of operating which is an everyday method of oppressing and maintaining power over woman.<br />
106
107
Tracy Brown<br />
Balls<br />
Video art<br />
1:50 minutes<br />
2016<br />
Balls. <strong>The</strong> repetition of imagery has a real and adverse effect on the human psyche. Consistently sexist,<br />
violent, and derogatory images and messages diminish a women’s place in society while promoting<br />
violence on them; a trend that needs to end.<br />
108
109
Sara Cole<br />
Consent 1<br />
Acrylic and graphite on paper, mounted on canvas<br />
42 x 29 inches<br />
2016<br />
Six years ago, I was raped and beaten by someone I had known for seven years. <strong>The</strong>n his friend<br />
attempted to rape me before I was able to escape running half naked down the street at three in the<br />
morning. Watching a United States Presidential candidate, one who has been deemed a batterer, a<br />
groper, and possibly a child rapist joke about, condone and encourage assault against women, in 2016,<br />
leaves me 100 million thoughts and feelings and then leaves me numb. Consent cannot be bought or<br />
forced or taken. I do not consent.<br />
110
111
Madelyn Covey<br />
Pink Skirt<br />
Oil on wallpaper<br />
24 x 32 inches<br />
2016<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is a scarcity of images of female leg hair spanning from the classics of art history to our current<br />
visual culture. This perpetuates the oppressive and unrealistic beauty standard of compulsory<br />
depilation. <strong>The</strong> more images of something one sees, the more normalized that thing becomes. I want<br />
to use my paintings to normalize female leg hair.<br />
112
113
Grace Fechner<br />
Her<br />
Acrylic, cut paper, graphite, <strong>In</strong>dia ink pen on paper<br />
14.7 x 22 inches<br />
2016<br />
“Virgin, Whore, and Mother” are the categories women have been, and still are, placed into. This<br />
perpetuates slut-shaming, as well as places exceptional emphasis on a woman’s sexuality in a way that<br />
is limiting. <strong>In</strong> this piece, I reference the women subjects of Jean-Auguste-Dominique <strong>In</strong>gres’s<br />
Neoclassical portraiture, oppressive fashion in the form of gut-squishing Victorian corsets, Philipp Otto<br />
Runge’s Romantic paintings of ideal mornings, current attitudes, and emojis to break through these<br />
categories.<br />
114
115
Amy Finkbeiner<br />
<strong>The</strong> Eternal <strong>In</strong>cantation<br />
Video, edition of 5<br />
2:50 minutes<br />
2011-2012<br />
<strong>The</strong> Eternal <strong>In</strong>cantation is a chanting ritual with accompanying regalia. I use it to focus on—and<br />
ostensibly purge—the soundtrack that plays in my mind as I internalize everything that happens to me,<br />
either blaming or congratulating myself for random occurrences or other peoples’ actions towards me.<br />
<strong>The</strong> soundtrack, and thus the ritual, can fluctuate wildly. My efforts at purging this tendency have been<br />
unsuccessful so far; but then again, rituals do operate mysteriously. This futility seems to strike a chord<br />
with a great many women.<br />
116
117
Dwora Fried<br />
Hansel and Gretel<br />
Wooden box, metal, vintage dolls, photograph<br />
8 x 12 x 3.5 inches<br />
2016<br />
My assemblage mixed media boxes create miniature rooms that reflect the feeling of a woman<br />
growing up in the fifties. Yes, I do consider myself to be a feminist, but that lingering feeling of not<br />
being taken seriously, of not really mattering, of not being truly equal is hard to get rid of. I<br />
communicate that feeling in my art, my daughters are much more powerful and assertive and I am<br />
proud to have raised them.<br />
118
119
Laura Gelsomini with Susan Duby<br />
Fettered<br />
Paper<br />
48 x 40 inches<br />
2016<br />
Our work deals with aspects of the female figure from the perspective of both artist and muse<br />
simultaneously. We utilize our own bodies interchangeably as descriptive forms of engagement and<br />
connection. Representing self as generic instead of specific, the notion of identity and authorship is<br />
challenged and slippage occurs. Restraints inhibit gesture, heightening the desire for release. <strong>The</strong> gap is<br />
bridged between separate and divisive bodily containers of personality and personae, allowing spirit to<br />
flow freely.<br />
120
121
Brandon Harrell<br />
A Not So Androgynous Toy<br />
Copper, dough, plastic<br />
10.5 x 3 x 1.25 inches<br />
2004<br />
Society has this idea that the toys a child plays with will define their gender. I made this penis vagina<br />
extruder because play-doh is non gender specific, and I found it a playful way to communicate my idea<br />
of how ridiculous this thinking is. Being a non gender conforming queer woman who lived this toy<br />
debate as a child it was a piece I felt I was born to make.<br />
122
123
Samantha Hofsiss<br />
Dissolve<br />
White latex paint, artist (video)<br />
8:51 minutes<br />
2016<br />
Identity. I am fascinated by the ability for some to establish a strong independent mentality early in life<br />
while others wander through life feeling incomplete. Being a young woman, I continuously observe the<br />
growing chasm between the traditional expectancies of a woman. <strong>The</strong> expectations that were instilled<br />
within me as a child, such as the new age of empowerment, and the encouragement that society is<br />
slowly understanding the strength of independent women.<br />
124
125
Blond Jenny<br />
What did we learn?<br />
Pigment print<br />
30 x 40 inches<br />
2016<br />
What did we learn? Mass media and society give us so many misleading images of women. <strong>The</strong>y try to<br />
force us to be docile and compliant. Women aren’t free. We are expected to fit a mold defined by men.<br />
I want to show that we are ready to remove our masks, air our sadness and positively support each<br />
other.<br />
126
127
Kay Kang<br />
Jungwhan (For the Girls)<br />
Acrylic and charcoal embedded in mixture of sand on 70 panels<br />
69 x 48 inches<br />
2002-ongoing<br />
Jungwhan consists of series of charcoal pieces embedded in a mixture of sand and pumice on a 6” x 6”<br />
x 3” panel, on which I have written the names of each of my university classmates. Of these numerous<br />
women in my class, approximately 17% possess what are typically considered male names. Jungwhan<br />
are tribute to the women in my class of Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, Korea who were given<br />
male names at birth, in hope that their mothers would bear sons instead of daughters in the future.<br />
128
129
Kay Kang<br />
Gateway<br />
Charcoal, hemp rope, rice paper, oil and sand on panel<br />
45 x 48 inches<br />
2004<br />
Gateway speaks to an old Korean tradition for communicating the gender of a new born. When a<br />
female is born, charcoal is attached to a hemp rope and hung outside of the front door, signaling<br />
disappointment; but when a boy is born, red chili peppers, signaling joy are treaded in these hemp<br />
ropes in addition to charcoals. Written on these charcoal pieces are Korean female names of my<br />
college classmates.<br />
130
131
Daniela Kostova<br />
New Role Models 1<br />
Photographic print on canvas<br />
32 x 42 inches<br />
2015<br />
My work responds to the fluidity of gender in this day and age, and the mode by which one woman<br />
capitalizes on androgyny. I complicate the notion of binary (male vs. female, masculine vs. feminine),<br />
presenting gender as performance. <strong>In</strong> my last body of work I photograph my daughter and her<br />
babysitter, who also works as an androgynous fashion model for both male and female brands.<br />
Describing herself as a “gender capitalist”, the model takes advantage of opportunities given to people<br />
based on their perceived sex or gender.<br />
132
133
Kellie Ann Krouse<br />
Untitled<br />
Glass<br />
8 x 6 inches, approx. each<br />
2016<br />
As a female in society, childhood is a critical time for navigating how the label of “female” dictates the<br />
rest of your life. This includes an understanding of sexuality as presented by everyday objects. I have<br />
found that children’s underwear is a hotbed for this very idea. <strong>In</strong> these pieces I give weight to their<br />
content through physical and visual tensions, both literally and through a material translation capturing<br />
the range of sexuality placed on the “panties.”<br />
134
135
Kellie Ann Krouse<br />
follow the rules<br />
Children’s underwear, rope<br />
53 x 60 inches<br />
2016<br />
As a female in society, childhood is a critical time for navigating how the label of “female” dictates the<br />
rest of your life. This includes an understanding of sexuality as presented by everyday objects. I have<br />
found that children’s underwear is a hotbed for this very idea. <strong>In</strong> these pieces I give weight to their<br />
content through physical and visual tensions, both literally and through a material translation capturing<br />
the range of sexuality placed on the “panties.”<br />
136
137
Liz Leger<br />
Thank You for Not Breeding<br />
Charcoal/graphite on Coventry rag paper<br />
44 x 64 inches<br />
2014<br />
If you are a woman or self identified woman your worth in society is measured through your body. <strong>The</strong><br />
heteronormative power structure effects women in every aspect of life: family, work and the right to<br />
choose. Feminists and feminist artists have sought to disrupt and decolonize corporeal politics.<br />
Deciding not to enter into parenthood has long been considered a subversive act. Given the forces of<br />
consumer baby culture, childhood poverty and overpopulation, not procreating can still be a<br />
revolutionary act.<br />
138
139
Chanel Matsunami Govreau and Lip J<br />
Midnight Work<br />
Video (limited edition of 5 videos)<br />
9:29 minutes<br />
2016<br />
Waacking, an urban dance style originally created by Gay men of color, is a form of radical self love<br />
that emphasizes the use of pose, facial expression and emotion. Waacking is wildly popular in Asia<br />
amongst young women. During the filming of this video the participants call out, scream and direct to<br />
create a space of loving and joyful support for the performer to explore sensuality, anger, fear,<br />
sluttiness, beauty and self love. Basically to say, “F*ck you, I can love myself and my bitches are here to<br />
support me.”<br />
140
141
Colleen Merrill<br />
Schism<br />
Manipulated found quilt, linen, silk thread, gourd, cotton rope<br />
14 x 7 x 8 inches<br />
2016<br />
Schism is a part of my most recent body of work titled Fawn. <strong>The</strong> term fawn refers to one still unweaned<br />
or retaining a distinctive baby coat. <strong>The</strong> anthropomorphic figure scrutinizes the<br />
interdependent and maternal role of myself as partner and mother. Schism deals the continual<br />
opposing feelings that result from domesticity. <strong>The</strong>se challenges range anywhere from fulfilling the<br />
normative gender role for each parent to the ability to have a sexually gratifying relationship with your<br />
partner after having a child.<br />
142
143
Rachel ODonnell<br />
I’ll Eat You!<br />
Acrylic paint on magazine (Teen Vogue)<br />
9 x 6.6 inches<br />
2016<br />
Sexuality, femininity and violence all clash in my newest series, “Femme Fatales.” <strong>In</strong>spired by the art of<br />
old pulp fiction novels, these pieces utilize ‘titles’ filled with double meaning. Behind the feigned<br />
femininity lurks a truer monster, much more powerful and fearsome than the oppressive world she<br />
operates in.<br />
144
145
Rachel ODonnell<br />
Bury Me Deep<br />
Acrylic paint and oil paint markers on nylon 1960s slip<br />
17.5 x 25 inches<br />
2016<br />
Sexuality, femininity and violence all clash in my newest series, “Femme Fatales.” <strong>In</strong>spired by the art of<br />
old pulp fiction novels, these pieces utilize ‘titles’ filled with double meaning. Behind the feigned<br />
femininity lurks a truer monster, much more powerful and fearsome than the oppressive world she<br />
operates in.<br />
146
147
Patricia Olson<br />
Self-Portrait at 60 [after Beckmann]<br />
Oil on panel<br />
55 x 37 inches<br />
2011<br />
Self-Portrait at 60 is based on Max Beckmann’s Self-Portrait in Tuxedo. Beckmann paints a confident<br />
but guarded presentation of the modern artist—at this time in history defined as exclusively male. This<br />
painting transposes the gender of the artist, to project this male presentation of self and power via an<br />
aging women’s body, at turns surprising, empowering, pathetic. Where Beckmann holds a cigarette,<br />
this figure holds a tampon, symbolizing femaleness and, after menopause, the loss of fertility and<br />
traditional female power.<br />
148
149
Jessi Presley-Grusin<br />
It Becomes Her<br />
Book board, Stonehenge cream paper, ink<br />
16 inches across (open), 8 inches closed<br />
2016<br />
It Becomes Her is a book about the removal of female pubic hair, often due to societal pressures and<br />
expectations of appearance. Its intention was to examine why we may choose to alter our bodies in<br />
this way, and to change some of our reasons for doing so—to make room for choice: choosing to play,<br />
to experiment with your hair (or lack thereof), choosing to do what feels right for you. To embrace your<br />
body as it is or as you make it, both can be forms of radical self-love—a “f*ck you,” if you will, “in the<br />
most loving way.”<br />
150
151
Nancy Roy-Meyer<br />
Women Laughing at Salad<br />
Acrylic on canvas<br />
64 x 35 inches<br />
2014<br />
2014 I stand before cake contemplating its meaning as if it is the most pressing issue of our time. <strong>In</strong><br />
response to a weight phobic American culture that encourages fat shaming as ones civic duty, I<br />
celebrate abundance as an alternative to the policing of a restrictive and regulated lean existence.<br />
From an obese woman’s perspective who is pathologized and marginalized by society I question, what<br />
is beauty, who and what is grotesque?<br />
152
153
Zona Sage<br />
<strong>The</strong> Good Old Days?<br />
Vintage crazy quilt fragments, silk, photo transfer, beads, embroidery, handkerchief<br />
15 x 10 inches<br />
2010<br />
When people speak of nostalgia for “the good old days” or “making America great again” they usually<br />
have a very narrow vision of who is included and ignore the realities for many segments of society, and<br />
women in particular. This small piece invites the viewer in. Upon closer inspection, the embroidery<br />
reveals its true sentiments: “Contraception is illegal,” “I am my husband’s property,” and “I cannot<br />
vote.” Hidden under the handkerchief is embroidered, “I am a lesbian.”<br />
154
155
SAMANIA (Samira Mahboub + Ania Catherine)<br />
PHASE<br />
Video<br />
2:00 minutes<br />
2016<br />
156
157
Lucy Sexton<br />
When you period blood all over<br />
Dollhouse objects, menstruation blood, and existing data from user generated social media sites<br />
5:46 minutes<br />
2015<br />
Patriarchy still whispers in the lives of everyday women. I am politely reminded that some things are<br />
best left unsaid and unseen, like my period. This work explores the ways in the act of “playing” can<br />
subvert shame. Additionally, how the <strong>In</strong>ternet and User Generated social media platforms provide the<br />
opportunity for women to cope with the shame inscribed on their bodies. This performance and<br />
production of “self” on social media sites is an opportunity for women to understand and reclaim their<br />
identities and bodies.<br />
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159
Judy Shintani<br />
Mary’s Power<br />
Found objects, mixed media<br />
6 x 6 x 4 feet<br />
2004<br />
Rarely do we honor the women who labor to support families, allowing future generations to thrive.<br />
This is a portrait of my Grandmother, a devout Christian and very proper, strong woman. When my<br />
Grandfather was imprisoned in Hawaii during WWII for being a Japanese American community leader,<br />
she became the sole breadwinner, supporting her family by ironing and taking in laundry. <strong>The</strong><br />
sharpness of the dowels reflects her vigor and prickliness, and my reaction to the unjust, racist actions<br />
of the US government towards its citizens.<br />
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161
Dafna Steinberg<br />
Bang<br />
Mixed paper collage, screen shot Tinder conversation, wooden frame<br />
9.25 x 14 inches<br />
2016<br />
This project stems from my own personal experience using the dating app Tinder. Using real messages<br />
from the app, it examines the differences between the superficial hopes of romantic love, the stark<br />
reality found on dating sites and trying to reconcile the two while combating the misogyny of “hook<br />
up” culture. It explores how anonymity and the app’s perceived promise of sexual encounters allow<br />
men to treat women as objects meant to satisfy their needs. I also include my own voice pushing back,<br />
through wit and irony, against the sexual intrusions.<br />
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163
Rebecca Sutton<br />
You Won’t Kiss <strong>The</strong>se Rotten Lips<br />
Watercolor on paper<br />
42 x 29 inches<br />
2015<br />
Though the female body is often depicted for its beauty, my interest in it is in a physical manifestation<br />
of the female mind. I want to create a space where women are free from the gaze of society. <strong>In</strong> our<br />
everyday lives we are plagued by irrational impulses which would remind us we are alive—such as the<br />
desire to jump into a fountain of water with all of our clothes on or to throw our lunches at a wall to<br />
see what it looks like. <strong>The</strong> women in these paintings are all following through with those impulses in an<br />
alternate reality imagined exclusively for the purpose of consummating their irrational behavior.<br />
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165
Rebecca Sutton<br />
<strong>The</strong> Blood and the Cause to Bleed<br />
Watercolor on paper<br />
24 x 36 inches<br />
2014<br />
Though the female body is often depicted for its beauty, my interest in it is in a physical manifestation<br />
of the female mind. I want to create a space where women are free from the gaze of society. <strong>In</strong> our<br />
everyday lives we are plagued by irrational impulses which would remind us we are alive—such as the<br />
desire to jump into a fountain of water with all of our clothes on or to throw our lunches at a wall to<br />
see what it looks like. <strong>The</strong> women in these paintings are all following through with those impulses in an<br />
alternate reality imagined exclusively for the purpose of consummating their irrational behavior.<br />
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167
Rhonda Thomas Urdang<br />
Temple of the Virgins<br />
Vintage dolls, ragged cotton quilt, crochet doilies, tulle, ribbon, rhinestones, dress pins<br />
18 x 22 x 4 inches<br />
2016<br />
Focusing on the conventions of marriage, virginity, housewifery, and incidents that are womanly and<br />
feminine— I’ve revisited Womanhouse 45 years later. Womyn have been the keepers of everyone’s<br />
sugarcoated skeletons in the cupboard, including our own. F*ck U is my prayer of contempt. No other<br />
reaction is appropriate when reprehensible deeds have ensued. My assemblage depicts my story of<br />
molestation and sexual assault as a three year-old child by my maternal Uncle, a retired evangelical<br />
minister who resides in California.<br />
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169
Wendy Tigchelaar<br />
Still Holding Up-Womanhousevessel<br />
Cardboard, paint, thread<br />
7 x 12 x 7 inches<br />
2016<br />
Why are women so often still the caretakers and connectors of the world? How do we communicate<br />
with others, both directly and indirectly, about the roles we are willing to assume? How often do we<br />
say yes when we mean no, ignore our internal truths, follow paths that are not ours? How do we<br />
confine ourselves, and how can we live differently? What do we need to do in order to take our places<br />
with more power and to promote this for others, too?<br />
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Marcela Torres<br />
Arbitrary Selection<br />
iPad and mounted box - small video installation<br />
2.5 x 11.75 x 3.5 inches (4 minutes)<br />
2015<br />
Arbitrary Selection is a re-creation of a racial violent act that has been historically practiced in the U.S<br />
as late as 1998 (RIP James Byrd, Jr). <strong>The</strong> film is 4 minutes long, played on a iPad with a customized app<br />
that interrupts the viewer from watching.<br />
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173
Teddi Tostanoski<br />
Sexual Fear<br />
<strong>In</strong>kjet Print<br />
11 x 14 inches<br />
2016<br />
This body of work addresses many issues regarding woman’s bodily function issues and how women<br />
handle and feel about these issues. Having my own uterine problems that are heightened during<br />
ovulation, I have found how not only how society views abnormal uterine and vaginal issues, but how<br />
regular menstruation is perceived.<br />
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175
Cate White<br />
Christmas Prison Visit<br />
Acrylic, house paint on wood panel<br />
45 x 65 inches<br />
2015<br />
This painting depicts a photo from a Christmas visit a friend and I paid to a third friend doing time in a<br />
Louisiana prison. I stood between them for the photo as the woman usually does, acting as both focal<br />
point and placeholder. I am interested in what the naked female body provokes when its role or social<br />
position is unclear: Ally or object? Soldier or spoils of war? And who decides what her body “means?”<br />
Me or the viewer? As with most of my work, I am interested in confusing the language and symbols of<br />
power.<br />
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Leisel Whitlock<br />
Genesis 1:1 the re-education of Eve (my answers may not be your answer)<br />
Social practice art<br />
30 x 33 x 24 inches<br />
2016<br />
Self-love is learned. And for those who exist outside the margins of the “white” (male, heteronormative<br />
young, thin and rich) ideal, it is learned in the process of rejecting messages that you are not<br />
sacred or of significant value. But what is to be done when some of those lessons are inadvertently<br />
taught by those who are most dear and then reinforced by oneself? With this piece the participant/<br />
viewer is asked to consider five questions and leave a note if so inclined. Comments will be compiled<br />
for online February 2017 viewing.<br />
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Joni Wildman<br />
Mary in the Outhouse<br />
Colored pencil on paper<br />
24 x 30 inches<br />
2016<br />
Mary in the Outhouse is a work of colored pencil on paper that mocks the social practice of<br />
breastfeeding in public restrooms to avoid the dirty looks of embarrassed patrons and staff. This piece<br />
is a part of a series of self-portraits of the artist as Mary who had a little lamb, but did not necessarily<br />
want one. Mary feeds her lambs in the outhouse, with a twisted version of her rhyme scrawled on the<br />
wall behind her.<br />
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KITCHEN TABLE TALK<br />
Written and performed by Tanya Augsburg<br />
Production Assistant: Josefin Jansson<br />
January 13, 2017<br />
Ninth Street <strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center<br />
San Francisco, CA<br />
Kitchen Table Talk is a participatory feminist performance for creative envisioning in uncertain times. I<br />
have been creating platforms for public debate for over twenty years. Usually those platforms are in<br />
the form of conference panels. I have occasionally performed rituals, but many of these have been<br />
participatory and relational. Kitchen Table Talk is an attempt to forge what I have done in the past with<br />
my ongoing belief that we have to work collectively to create new possibilities.<br />
Kitchen Table Talk was originally created for NCWCA’s F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> and was first<br />
performed on January 13, 2017 at the Ninth Street <strong>In</strong>dependent Film Center. <strong>The</strong> performance links a<br />
traditional form of problem solving for women—gathering around the kitchen table—with more recent<br />
methods, such as feminist consciousness raising, brainstorming, and rolestorming—while also being<br />
formed by the conversational method modeled by the television show <strong>The</strong> View and the Lean <strong>In</strong> Circles<br />
inspired by Sheryl Sandberg’s 2013 book Lean <strong>In</strong>. <strong>The</strong> performance also gives a nod to the Post-It Walls<br />
of Empathy that sprouted up around San Francisco BART Stations after the 2016 U.S Presidential<br />
Election. <strong>The</strong>y in turn were influenced by the New York City subway wall Post-It mosaics instigated by<br />
artist Mathew Chavez.<br />
<strong>The</strong> performance at Kala <strong>In</strong>stitute in Berkeley, CA on March 25, 2017 was produced by NCWCA<br />
member Elizabeth Addison, who helped greatly with all aspects of the performance, including set<br />
design. I was prompted to make some last-minute changes to the performance after seeing the<br />
photograph that the Vice-President tweeted on March 23, 2017 of the House Freedom Caucus sitting<br />
around a conference table to discuss women’s health. For the Kala performance the photograph was<br />
projected on a wall throughout the performance as a point of reference.<br />
One never knows how audiences will react to a performance, and the audience at Kala was interested<br />
in sitting around the kitchen table and talking. Our conversations about our current concerns for<br />
women were wide-ranging and insightful. <strong>The</strong> performance at Kala ended with the group reenacting<br />
the House Freedom Caucus meeting, which some of us then posted on social media. I am grateful to<br />
Elizabeth Addison, Amber Hoy of Kala, Robert Schmitz and my two student volunteers, Daniel Bird and<br />
Raquel Christian, for their assistance. I am honored that the website 100 Days of Action selected the<br />
performance for their calendar.<br />
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F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>: <strong>The</strong> Documentary (2017)<br />
I believe we had a good fight.<br />
F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> <strong>The</strong> <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> short film is a half-hour film which documented feminism and feminist<br />
art in 2016 and 2017. <strong>The</strong> film highlighted the process of curating, producing, and behind the scene<br />
secrets from NCWCA curatorial committee. <strong>The</strong> film is filled with fun, fucks, frustrations, and forever<br />
love.<br />
<strong>The</strong> F*ck U! exhibition planning took place during the 2016 United States presidential campaign<br />
season. Donald Trump won the 2016 election during the show and the women's march happened on<br />
the day the show closed. As I worked through the video editing, I re-lived my depression<br />
and disappointment about the election results. On the other hand, I was also re-living the support from<br />
the women artist's community. To preserve those footages and edit them into a watchable format is<br />
for the future generation to see—to see the leadership of brilliant women, the problem-solving skills<br />
we had, the diversity of our community, and the strength of supporting each other as a group of<br />
women.<br />
F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> <strong>The</strong> <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> was curated and produced by a group of volunteer women artists and<br />
helped by all gender equality fighters. I am proud to be part of it.<br />
Mido Lee<br />
Tech Specialist & Documentarian<br />
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F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>:<br />
A National Feminist Art Exhibition<br />
Dec. 17, 2016 – Jan. 21, 2017<br />
Media Report<br />
Calendar Listings<br />
Nov. 9, 2016 SF Arts Monthly<br />
<strong>The</strong> F*ck U! event listing is on the Arts Monthly website:<br />
https://www.sfarts.org/event.cfm?event_num=70254<br />
Berkeley Patch<br />
F*ck U! <strong>In</strong> the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> Events<br />
http://patch.com/california/berkeley/calendar/event/20170113/82743/f-ckuin-the-most-loving-way-events<br />
Nov. 22, 2016 KPFA-FM<br />
<strong>The</strong> event was posted to KPFA's Community Calendar:<br />
https://kpfa.org/event/fck-u-loving-way/<br />
Dec. – Jan. issue Central City Extra<br />
Posted online on Dec. 15, 2016<br />
Calendar announcement on page 8 of the print edition, as well as photo of<br />
Blond Jenny’s pigment print. See PDF file titled CCX-173-8.pdf<br />
http://studycenter.org/test/cce/index.html<br />
Print and Online Articles<br />
Dec. 8, 2016 San Leandro Times<br />
Headline: “San Leandran Directs Feminist Art Show”<br />
Story ran on page 2 with a color photo of Leisel Whitlock’s installation work.<br />
Dec. 16, 2016 Golden Gate Express<br />
Headline: “Feminist Art Exhibit Tackles Patriarchy and Roles of Women Today”<br />
http://goldengatexpress.org/2016/12/16/feminist-art-exhibit-tacklespatriarchyand-roles-of-women-today/<br />
Sat. Dec. 17, 2016 Mission Local<br />
Headline: Feminist Art Gives Middle Finger to Misogyny, Opens Tonight”<br />
Story posted online. Tanya Augsburg and Ester Hernandez were interviewed.<br />
http://missionlocal.org/2016/12/feminist-art-exhibition-gives-middlefingerto-misogyny-opens-tonight/<br />
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Thurs. Dec. 22 to Wed, Dec. 28 SF Weekly<br />
Leisel Whitlock and Tanya Augsburg interviewed on Friday, Dec. 2.<br />
Posted the evening of Tues. Dec. 20, 2016<br />
http://www.sfweekly.com/culture/giving-fck-art-makes-womens-invisibleconditioninvisible/<br />
Page 32, paper of Thurs. Dec. 22 to Wed. Dec. 28 as part of a larger arts piece. Headline: Gorilla Glass –<br />
Xiaoxiao Zeng’s “Humanimal” seeks to approach the animal kingdom on its own terms.<br />
Sun. Dec. 25, 2016 SF Examiner<br />
Headline: Arc Gallery exhibit raises a feminist middle finger in uncertain times<br />
http://www.sfexaminer.com/arc-gallery-exhibit-raises-feminist-middlefinger-uncertain-times/<br />
Jan. 3, 2017 SF Arts Monthly<br />
Online write up by their galleries curator. See attached screen shot from the SF Arts Monthly web site.<br />
Radio<br />
Wed. Dec. 14 from 9 – 9:30 a.m. KKUP (91.5 F)M<br />
Shannon Rose Riley and Tanya Augsburg were interviewed for a half-hour.<br />
Sat. Dec. 17 from 11 a.m. to noon KALX (90.7 FM)<br />
Women Hold Up Half the Sky<br />
Guests interviewed were Liesel Whitlock, Tanya Augsburg, Elizabeth Leger, and Judy Shintani<br />
https://kalx.berkeley.edu/programs/women-hold-half-sky<br />
Sat. Dec. 17, afternoon and evening KCBS (740AM and 106.9 FM)<br />
Tanya Augsburg was interviewed at Arc Gallery.<br />
Two different audio clips aired on KCBS.<br />
Wed. Jan. 11, 2017 KALW (91.7 FM)<br />
Sights and Sounds<br />
Sights & Sounds airs on Thursdays at 7:45 a.m. and 4:45 p.m.<br />
Tanya Augsburg spoke about three upcoming art events.<br />
http://kalw.org/post/sights-sounds-tanya-augsburg#stream/0<br />
Thurs. Jan. 19, 2017 KALW (91.7 FM)<br />
Cross Currents<br />
Tanya Augsburg was interviewed about the F*ck U! art exhibit<br />
Cross Currents airs from 5-5:30 p.m. Mondays thru Thursdays<br />
http://kalw.org/post/fck-u-most-loving-way-women-artists-speak<br />
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Exhibition Collective—June 5, 2016<br />
at Judy Johnson-William’s studio 347 Lewis St, Oakland<br />
Left to right: Leisel Whitlock, Judy Johnson-Williams, Mido Lee, Tanya Augsburg, Karen Gutfreund, Priscilla Otani, Veronica<br />
Yazmin, Lena Shey, Patricia Montgomery. Photo by Mido Lee<br />
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WOMEN’S MARCH NATIONAL—January 21, 2017<br />
Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland<br />
Images first row, left to right:<br />
Bus to Washington, photo courtesy of Karen Gutfreund<br />
Samanta Tello and daughters at Women’s March in San Francisco, photo courtesy of Samanta Tello<br />
Natasha Stillman (daughter), Zona Sage, Marina Carlstroem (granddaughter) at Women’s March in Oakland,<br />
photo courtesy of Zona Sage<br />
Women’s March in Washington, photo by Amy Finkbeiner<br />
Unidentified woman, Woman’s March in Washington, photo by Amy Finkbeiner<br />
Images second row, left to right:<br />
Karen LeCocq, Women’s March in Washington, photo courtesy of Karen LeCocq<br />
Miriam Fabbri, Kelly Hammargren, Mary Shisler, Women’s March in Oakland, photo courtesy of Mary Shisler<br />
Patricia Olson and friends, Women’s March in St. Paul, Minnesota, photo courtesy of Patricia Olson<br />
Linda Joy Kattwinkel with husband and friends, Women’s March in San Francisco, photo courtesy of Linda Joy<br />
Kattwinkel<br />
Sign in Manhattan, Women’s March in New York City, photo by Wendy Tigchelaar<br />
Images third row, left to right:<br />
Rachel O’Donnell, Women’s March in Los Angeles, photo courtesy of Rachel O’Donnell<br />
Ruth Petersen Shorer, Women’s March in Oakland, photo courtesy of Ruth Petersen Shorer<br />
Women’s March in Washington, photo by Amy Finkbeiner<br />
Sign in Manhattan, Women’s March in New York City, photo by Wendy Tigchelaar<br />
Amy Finkbeiner, Women’s March in Washington, photo courtesy of Amy Finkbeiner<br />
Images fourth row, left to right:<br />
Jeannette Kiel with her sons, Women’s March in Walnut Creek, photo courtesy of Jeannette Kiel<br />
Karen Gutfreund, Women’s March in Washington, photo courtesy of Sally Edelstein<br />
Marya Roland, Ann Rowles, Cherie M. Redlinger, Women’s March in Washington, photo courtesy of Cherie<br />
Redlinger<br />
Ester Hernandez, Women’s March in San Francisco, photo courtesy of Ester Hernandez<br />
Karen Le Cocq and friend, Women’s March in Oakland, photo courtesy of Karen LeCocq<br />
Images fifth row, left to right:<br />
Unidentified woman, Women’s March in Washington, photo courtesy of Amy Finkbeiner<br />
Brandon F Harrell and David, Women’s March in Asheville, NC, photo courtesy of Brandon F Harrell<br />
Kathy Fujii-Oka and Tracy Beckerley, Women’s March in Oakland, photo courtesy of Kathy Fujii-Oka<br />
Ruth Petersen Shorer and friends, Women’s March in Oakland, photo courtesy of Ruth Petersen Shorer<br />
Women’s March in San Francisco, photo courtesy of Karen LeCocq<br />
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WOMEN’S MARCH PHOTOS from around the USA. January 21, 2017<br />
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WOMEN’S MARCH PHOTOS from San Francisco Civic Center. January 21, 2017<br />
All photos courtesy of Mido Lee<br />
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REFLECTIONS FROM THE WOMEN’S MARCH 2017<br />
Amy Finkbeiner<br />
We got all the way to the White House. He must have heard us.<br />
Kathy Fujii-Oka<br />
It was a phenomenal day marching in peace and solidarity with a passionate crowd of anti-Trump individuals. How<br />
empowering it felt, a global day of love and honor in support of human rights and beliefs… loved the pink hats and<br />
wonderfully creative signage!<br />
Karen Gutfreund<br />
<strong>The</strong> ground swell in Washington was amazing, with thousands of women walking from every direction towards Ground<br />
Zero... the main stage. Early morning, with a bit of a chill in the air and overcast, yet the air sparkled with electricity. We<br />
were trying to meet up with friends and unfortunately as more and more people assembled most all cell phone service<br />
went out. Somehow the gods were smiling on Sally and me, and as we inched around a building in search of our friends we<br />
actually ended up just 30 yards from the mainstage. Although people were packed in like sardines (and if you had to get<br />
out it would have been impossible) the crowds stretched out a mile in all directions, the mood was jubilant and<br />
accommodating no matter how many more people try to squeeze in. <strong>The</strong> speeches were incredibly inspiring, and I plan to<br />
use the poem by Nina Mariah Donovan, age 19, that Ashley Judd performed into a text painting (giving credit of course!)<br />
But what affected me the most was Sophie Cruz, a 6-year-old immigration activist and daughter of two undocumented<br />
immigrants, who spoke at the March. She is the little girl who "initially attracted attention when she slipped through the<br />
security barricade to get to Pope Francis during a procession when he visited the U.S. in 2015. She handed the pope a<br />
letter about immigration reform, in which she expressed her fear that her parents would be deported." She said, "We are<br />
here together making a chain of love to protect our families...Let us fight with love, faith and courage so that our families<br />
will not be destroyed. “I also want to tell the children not to be afraid, because we are not alone, <strong>The</strong>re are still many<br />
people that have their hearts filled with love.” She then repeated it in Spanish. It brought me to tears.<br />
Later I discovered a song from a flash mob that has gone viral "I can't keep quiet," www.icantkeepquiet.org that is just so<br />
incredibly inspiring and makes my heart swell. So while I am very tired today, I keep playing it and it is energizing me. To<br />
bring her music to the march, <strong>The</strong> performer MILCK formed an all female choir comprised of 26 women from Los Angeles<br />
and D.C. I think it will become the anthem to this movement. Now that it has started it will not be stopped or silenced.<br />
And then the actual March began. <strong>The</strong> creativity and slogans on the signs were just unbelievable. I'm thinking of making a<br />
compilation book (as soon as I get the copyright issues sorted out) with photos of signs from around the globe, and then<br />
selling them as a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood. <strong>The</strong> chance were very inspiring and fun too. I think my favorite was<br />
"we are here to stay, welcome to your first day." <strong>The</strong> sea of people stretched on for miles and the roar of the crowd was<br />
like a turbulent ocean. Whenever a helicopter would go overhead people would stop, hold their signs to the sky and roar.<br />
It felt larger than life, and I felt embraced in collective humanity that wants peace and progress. And while there were<br />
many marches in my own backyard in California I thought it was so important to be a part of history and make the effort to<br />
be in Washington. I know I am very lucky and privileged that I have the means to do so.<br />
Now while my arms are aching from holding them above my head for hours, my heart is full with hope for positive change<br />
and what we can and will do when we come together.<br />
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Brandon F Harrell<br />
Me and my friend David at the march in Asheville, NC. Couldn’t make it to DC. Much love to all. United we stand alone<br />
we can fall. Stand united!<br />
Blond Jenny<br />
My day started at 3:30am when I boarded my first bus to NYC with a dozen other women on board. An hour later we<br />
joined 582 other men and women at the NY Port Authority where we filled a dozen buses. When we arrived in D.C. at RFK<br />
Stadium every parking lot was filled with what looked like more than 1,000 other buses all carrying people on the same<br />
mission to join the Women's March.<br />
So many pink women kitties came to Washington D.C.. We looked like a sea of kitties as we made our way across town to<br />
Capitol Hill. Along the way we were greeted by the locals, friendly police offers and the military. Everyone knew it would<br />
be a busy day but I don't think anyone anticipated how busy.<br />
From young girls being carried by their mothers to the elderly we united on <strong>In</strong>dependence Ave. with pride and courage.<br />
We raised our voices together to sing about what we want for our country and the world. <strong>The</strong> March didn't end when all<br />
the crowds and buses were dispersed. Our voices and songs remain in Washington D.C. and the world will continue to feel<br />
our unity.<br />
I am overwhelmingly positive from speaking with artist friends who were there with me, back home in New York, Las<br />
Vegas, and Santa Cruz. We have proven that we are connected and empowered! Before the March I was depressed and<br />
wasn't happy about the election but now I feel revitalized.<br />
I met my Senator, Cory Booker, during the March and I have plans to mail him as my first of 10 Actions in 100 Days. I will<br />
vote for him and continue to fight for a better future for us.<br />
Jeannette Kiel<br />
Walnut Creek women's march: I march with/for my sons. I teach them about love, respect, and fighting for what they<br />
believe in. I tell them that they are a part of history, we are all equal, and that love always wins.<br />
Karen LeCocq<br />
<strong>In</strong> both marches (Oakland and San Francisco), I felt the most positive energy, hopefulness and complete respect for one's<br />
fellow marchers. It was crowded, so crowded in San Francisco, that you had to walk in tiny baby steps through the<br />
assembled at the initial gathering point when you could move at all. <strong>Most</strong> of the time one was wedged in like a sardine in<br />
an over-packed can. However, there was no pushing, shoving, rude behavior or negative remarks from anyone. We were<br />
all so happy to see each other turn out. I was so moved to see the signs from all these different factions: women, men,<br />
children, LGBT's, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, immigrants...the one good thing TRUMP did was to unite all people against him<br />
into beautiful marches all across the country and even the world. That may be the one positive thing about his disastrous<br />
reign...and hopefully, because of the marches, it will be a short one.<br />
Cherie Redlinger<br />
It was a day of amazing women coming together for love, healing, and a day to hear powerful speeches like the one Gloria<br />
Steinem did that rocked the rally filled with YES WE CAN!<br />
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Zona Sage<br />
I was at an all day meeting of the board of the ACLU on the day of the march, planning the organization's response to the<br />
new administration, but on the lunch break joined my daughter and granddaughter at the demonstration in Oakland! It<br />
was great to be at the march and to later see the whole world rising up in unison for the good.<br />
Mary Shisler<br />
I was nearly in tears as 100,000 strong marched by. My group was late because BART was so overcrowded, so we waited<br />
until the crowd thinned out to join the march - nearly 2 and 1/2 hours after we took our positions on the corner. I am so<br />
proud and so invigorated. As many of you have found out, I have turned myself into a one woman petition machine. This<br />
is a lot more fun and please when you receive those petitions, please, please, please sign. We are having an effect.<br />
Ruth Shorer<br />
It was a beautiful rainbow of people coming together for equality and justice. <strong>The</strong> biggest question people have in<br />
retrospect is, “Will we be heard?”<br />
Samanta Tello<br />
<strong>The</strong> march in San Francisco has been really important for me, my husband and my daughters. Even at their young ages, 8<br />
and 5, they followed the presidential election closely and with a great deal of interest. <strong>The</strong>y were very excited about<br />
having the opportunity to see a woman running for the presidency and, as many of us, they were expecting the election<br />
day with enthusiasm. <strong>The</strong> result of the election was scary to them and made them feel unsafe. <strong>The</strong>ir father and I had<br />
many conversations with them regarding the situation and how this could affect the world. Trying of course, to give them<br />
a sense of safety, even amidst of all the scary changes happening. To me, as a mother, the march was a bonding moment<br />
with my daughters and also a learning moment for all of us. I felt proud to show them that, even if things don't go well, we<br />
are still powerful and don't have to agree with the circumstances.<br />
Going to the march made my daughters feel that good people were on their side, the side of girls, the side of the women<br />
that they are going to become. At this age there is a really strong sense of what's right and what's wrong, and they can't<br />
understand how someone mean can be in charge of our country. Going to the march made them feel proud, powerful and<br />
happy to be on the good side. And of course, they absolutely loved feeling the attention of people around them taking<br />
their photo with the sign they worked so hard on making.<br />
Wendy Tigchelaar<br />
Walking up Lexington Avenue toward the NYC Women’s March, Patti Smith’s song lyrics fill my head…..I believe everything<br />
we dream can come to pass through a union, that we can turn the world around, we can turn the earth’s revolution, we<br />
have the power, people have the power…. On the small island of Manhattan, people of all ages and classes and colors and<br />
genders and identities and abilities press together as we march. We are imperfect, all. Yet our numbers fill the streets, our<br />
signs color the air above our heads, our chants swell in a heart-lifting roar.<br />
We’re not here for catharsis. We are here for a much larger purpose: to remember that we need each other. For who will<br />
speak out with me when my truths are obliterated and my rights are violated, if not you? Who will stand with you when<br />
your identity is shamed and your vulnerability is abused and your body and soul are harmed, if not me?<br />
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ARTIST ESSAYS<br />
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<strong>The</strong> Princess and the Presidency<br />
by MGP Andersen<br />
When I was out of town recently I noticed that hardly any women wore bangs, and everyone’s hair<br />
was shoulder length or longer. When I returned to San Francisco I told my hairdresser and she laughed<br />
and said that was because straight women always want “fucking princess hair.” Being a straight<br />
woman with bangs and sometimes purple hair, I took exception to this, but then my brother sent me a<br />
picture of my niece. She is only fourteen years old but her long hair was up and she had on a long<br />
dress and lots of make up and high heels. And she wore a crown.<br />
My hairdresser was right. Many straight<br />
women do want to be princesses and they<br />
pass this longing along to their daughters.<br />
<strong>The</strong> problem is that in most of the fairy tales<br />
princesses are valued for their beauty and<br />
breeding, not for their brains. <strong>The</strong>se qualities<br />
help them snag a prince, but then what?<br />
Nobody really lives happily ever after, so<br />
they snag a lot of disappointment, too. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
try again. And again. <strong>In</strong> their desperation<br />
they settle for dukes, then earls, then twice<br />
divorced game show hosts with appalling<br />
manners.<br />
Many of the princesses voted for Trump. He<br />
may be uncouth and inept, but he is wealthy,<br />
and therefore royalty. <strong>The</strong>ir unfounded faith<br />
in their newest savior may ruin the country<br />
during the next four years. Even more<br />
frightening, after he has disappointed them,<br />
they will be waiting to embrace their next<br />
champion.<br />
War Bride.2015. Courtesy of Artist, MGP Andersen.<br />
<strong>The</strong> only way to stop this cycle is to do away with princesses and replace them with women. So cut<br />
your hair and put on your boots and go out into the world and find out what you are good at. Don’t<br />
wait for anybody to make you happy. And tell your daughters to do the same thing. Champion yourself<br />
and the whole country will be stronger.<br />
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My Turn to Speak<br />
by Blond Jenny<br />
Throughout history women haven't been free. For me, I wanted to be an artist so I left my home in<br />
Korea where it is the tradition to have a lack of respect for women. When I was a child, my mom<br />
prepared the table setting and served my father and brother with silver utensils while my mom and I<br />
used stainless steel. I wondered why I couldn't eat with silver too. <strong>In</strong> some families men and women<br />
would even eat in separate tables or at different times. <strong>In</strong> times when we fought many wars, men were<br />
needed more than women but in modern society the stigma of war has continued to infect gender bias.<br />
<strong>In</strong> Korean society people still want boy babies over girls since they still have a traditional idea about<br />
bloodlines. Mother-in-laws and husbands often ridicule women that only bear girls and don’t have<br />
boys. <strong>The</strong>re is a similar outcome in the arts and in business. So many women graduate from art school<br />
but most successful artists are men. Every business woman feels that she has to fight with men for<br />
equal respect. <strong>Most</strong> people, even women, agree with this unfair sentiment.<br />
How are women defined in Korea? Beauty. I had to deal with so many traditional ideas and was forced<br />
to go on blind dates with family friends because as I aged and had not married people looked down on<br />
me. So many Korean women believe their beauty can change their life so they undergo surgery in hopes<br />
of a Cinderella story. We are brainwashed from childhood to want the same face, lifestyle, and ideas.<br />
Koreans cultivate a group mentality over individualism but I wanted to be an artist and to have my own<br />
freedom in expression. That's why I moved to New York to better my life. I know here I can speak up for<br />
women and be proud of myself at the same time.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se days despite having a female President in Korea, men<br />
continue to lead more than women. People don't recognize her for<br />
her achievements and only blame her for the problems she has<br />
caused. I couldn't vote in the recent US election since I am not yet a<br />
citizen. If I had the chance, I would have voted for Hillary. I want to<br />
show how women can change history. Also, I believe women can<br />
have a better life. I don't want to vote for a man who doesn't<br />
respect women and I am concerned about the long term change he<br />
will bring to America.<br />
Cauldron. Menstrual blood drawing and resin on photo print canvas,<br />
3 x 12 inches, 2017. Courtesy of the artist. A self-portrait as Trump<br />
decorated with menstrual blood. <strong>The</strong> idea behind this is inspired by<br />
witchcraft and the use of a talisman along with a rare or precious<br />
potion.<br />
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong> I Can Think of to Say, “Fuck You.”<br />
by Amy Finkbeiner<br />
I hate myself because I've known about this for weeks, this opportunity to write an essay for F*ck U! <strong>In</strong><br />
the <strong>Most</strong> <strong>Loving</strong> <strong>Way</strong>, and have been straining miserably at my computer; but I have been totally<br />
unable to do it. I hate myself because I'm so tired from my job that I can't jump on an opportunity to<br />
write about an exhibition I’m so proud to be in and the revisiting of a seminal feminist project that I<br />
love, when it should come out all magical-organic like it’s imprinted on my DNA. Shit. I hate myself for<br />
whining when in fact I have a job and a roof over my head and am in significantly less peril than so<br />
many people are at this moment. I hate myself for thinking I having nothing to say.<br />
Not unlike this feeling of jumping up, suddenly, wanting to say or do…oh, something impactful!…but<br />
collapsing like my torso is a misshapen lump of lead. Sinking back into my chair under a flat burden of<br />
futility and hopelessness that anything at all can be done to fight the white supremacist, misogynist,<br />
hateful, corrupt tyranny that is about to be installed in the executive branch of this nation.<br />
Not unlike the new untethering, a new wandering (wondering?) sensation, in my abdomen since<br />
November 9 when my period did not come. And would not come. For the first time since I was twelve.<br />
It did not arrive at its customary mid-afternoon hour on the 28 th day. It did not even come later that<br />
week after I’d been at work for long hours with a group of women, several of whom were having their<br />
periods, a sure-fire trigger for mine in the past. <strong>The</strong> releasing of the heaviness and fatigue, the clearing<br />
of the fog all in a rush of grinding emotions and churning hormones that is a period—it never came.<br />
For real: it appears my menopause started on November 9. My body decided to end an era that day. It<br />
gave up. It said to me (because it does talk to me), “Our world has changed.”<br />
I’m crying as I write this, something I haven’t been able to do for many weeks. Crying because I’m<br />
finally saying it, saying that my period is gone. Crying for the end of the world I knew, or didn’t know.<br />
Crying for the Bill of Rights, so screwed up and imperfect but also a kind of gravitational force. For<br />
Hillary, standing up there, maintaining her grace while being forced to swallow all the eons of hatred<br />
for all women, in a way that only women can ever understand. For all the people who are going to be<br />
frightened, limited, cut off, harmed, disappeared. For all the men I’ll never fuck. For all the women<br />
who are choosing to die by their own hands rather than submit to rape. For the destruction of this<br />
planet. For all women’s bodies. For my body, which I love and worship so dearly. For my period. For<br />
everything.<br />
I seem to recall a conversation not so long ago--I was talking to someone about something and I think I<br />
called myself a pacifist. It was such crap. I am not a pacifist. Please forgive me.<br />
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How can I say "fuck you" to misogyny in a loving way when I don't feel at all loving? When I feel like the<br />
most extreme opposite of loving? When in fact I’m sick to fucking death of having to “create” ways to<br />
respond to the hatred that is leveled at all women so that I won’t piss off the men doing the hating and<br />
give them even more reason to hurt me or hurt some other woman or hurt all women? When in fact I<br />
want to beat the shit out of misogyny? And beat the shit out of each and every man who perpetrates<br />
it—seriously, beat the shit out of them, smash their skulls with a crowbar? And I’m sitting here fretting<br />
even now that the crowbar thing sounds insane and will be dismissed as hysterical raving from a<br />
menopausal woman, like if maybe I just frame it in just the right way…and I’m about to delete that part<br />
but no hell no. I won’t. I won’t.<br />
No.<br />
NO.<br />
I’m sorry.<br />
This is not pro-active or uplifting or even positive. I’m saying bad things. This is bad.<br />
But no.<br />
I will not be loving towards you, misogyny.<br />
I am not loving.<br />
Fuck you.<br />
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Exclusion from <strong>In</strong>clusion<br />
by Nancy Roy-Meyer<br />
Feminism has a longstanding history of advocating for marginalized groups. It continues to be<br />
important in the 21 st century. As a feminist, I believe in an inclusive society where every ‘body’ should<br />
have equal access to the pursuit of happiness. Being a fat woman, I experience discrimination on a<br />
daily basis. <strong>In</strong> recent times the body positive movement reminds us that girth does not equal worth, as<br />
seen in my painting, BULLY. <strong>In</strong> my artwork, I address fat discrimination through a first-person account.<br />
It is important to note I do not intend to debate the health and medical criticisms governing weight,<br />
but rather advocate that “sizeism” be added to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act as a protected class. I<br />
propose fat-phobia is an ideological position and political issue fueled by mass media and patriarchal<br />
power.<br />
Nancy Roy-Meyer, BULLY (close-up detail), Mixed media, 2015. Courtesy of the Artist.<br />
February 28, 1972 marks the last day of the now historic Womanhouse exhibition in Los Angeles,<br />
California that was designed to give women a stronger presence within the art world. On that same<br />
day I celebrated my 11 th birthday.<br />
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As a pre-teen I was developing a sense of self-worth. This was a time<br />
of great change for women. Female status in society was evolving.<br />
Thanks to the efforts of the 1960s and 70s women’s liberation<br />
movement, I grew up with many more options and career choices for<br />
my life than the women of the generations before me who were<br />
generally not allowed to pursue any option outside the home.<br />
Nancy Roy, 11 years old, 1972.<br />
However, during that same timeframe where women were being freed<br />
to pursue options outside the traditional domestic role, we continued<br />
to adhere to the male-dominated ideal of what the female body type<br />
should be. Fashion in the late 60s featured a doe-eyed female British<br />
teenage model known as Twiggy. She was more than stick thin—every<br />
bone in her body seemed to protrude prominently through the<br />
clothing she was modeling. She was on every major magazine cover<br />
and was presented to us as the body we needed to achieve.<br />
Television brought into our homes the American ideal; what we needed to buy, how we should<br />
behave, and what we should look like. A prominent cigarette brand, Virginia Slims known for their<br />
1970s slogan, “you’ve come a long way baby,” encouraged women to smoke as a symbol for<br />
feminine power and sex appeal. It’s hard to imagine today, but at that point in time many physicians<br />
recommended that women smoke to prevent weight gain. (It would seem that in their eyes the risk<br />
of lung cancer was preferable to weight gain.)<br />
A memorable 1980 lyric advertising Enjoli perfume for the modern woman, “I can bring home the<br />
bacon and fry it up in the pan and never let you forget you’re a man because I am a woman”<br />
illustrates the cultural direction corporate America sold women—you can be successful, but you<br />
must continue to be the male ideal of what was considered sexually attractive at the time. <strong>In</strong> other<br />
words, women could have it all and do it all, as long as they looked “good” while doing it. It’s no<br />
wonder that I learned from an early age that my not-so-skinny body was not acceptable.<br />
As a fat female child I experienced daily bullying in school and snide comments made by wellmeaning<br />
(?) adults concerning my weight. A familiar chant often heard as I boarded the school bus,<br />
“fatty and skinny went to bed fatty rolled over and skinny was dead” (Unknown author) still echoes<br />
in my ears today. As I continue to experience discrimination in a fat-phobic American culture all my<br />
successes fade to the background and that childhood experience jumps to the foreground. <strong>The</strong> adult<br />
woman that I am continues to be devalued by a continuing culture that negatively stereotypes<br />
corpulent people, thus affecting equal access to advancement in employment.<br />
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<strong>In</strong> the United States, a heavy person is often discriminated against in the work place. It is much more<br />
widespread than most realize. A war has been declared on those whose bodies are not considered<br />
“normally weighted.” It has given many people the green light to make it their civic duty to shame<br />
these already marginalized people. To what end? To make them comply? With what? And, for what<br />
reason? Health? I think not. Rather, I think it is a way to continue to hold women down. <strong>In</strong>deed, many<br />
women today know there is a double standard for males and females. Women are still the spectacle of<br />
the male gaze with self-worth tied to a cultural appearance and behavior that defines femininity— by<br />
whom? It is a proven fact, bullying through shaming is psychologically destructive.<br />
One only has to look to the recent presidential season for this to be reaffirmed. President elect, Donald<br />
Trump reportedly caused emotional stress and made discriminatory comments regarding former Miss<br />
Universe, Alicia Machado’s weight and she acknowledges the years of therapy she has endure due to<br />
the abuse. When politicians in the U.S. model this behavior it is all the more imperative for fat people<br />
to be included in anti-discrimination laws. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a federal law that<br />
prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national<br />
origin, and religion. By adding “sizeism” or over-weight to the aforementioned list, heavy people will<br />
not be excluded from protection under federal anti-discrimination law. It won’t be a cure all against<br />
marginalization, but as one step closer towards an inclusive society.<br />
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