feminist art

You’ll have to forgive the puns. “Cliteracy,” for one: a knowledge of women’s bodies and female sexuality. “Phallusy,” for another: patriarchal misinformation. At Baang + Burne’s booth at Scope NYC (one of the many fairs in New York for Armory Week), artist Sophia Wallace rewrites the language of women’s bodies, of female pleasure, of (you guessed it) the clit.

Her immersive installation, Cliteracy, features a wall of “Natural Laws” that dominates the space and its viewers, suspended neon text, and a series of posters that read like dictionary definitions, eye sight tests, or political slogans. Wallace’s medium here is all text, whether it illuminates, acts as reference, or forces viewers to squint.

Anthologies are tricky projects to undertake. They are by their nature exclusive, as their purpose is either to further a canon's creation without challenging it, or to shatter boundaries and call for re-definitions and new critical perspectives. Either way, the vast majority of contributors to the anthologized media will be left out. Modern Women: Women Artists at the Museum of Modern Art is self-consciously trying to create both kinds of compilations at the same time. The book being about modern art specifically further complicates the viewing of these artists and their work—the editors are attempting to define and redefine a genre created to define and redefine. So it goes without saying that Modern Women is a pretty metaphysical literary and artistic experience. 

I recently had the awareness-expanding pleasure of attending a Sister Spit performance (Michelle Tea, OMG)! In performance-mode were outstanding poets, writers, performance artists and basically super fantastic humans including: Silas Howard, Nicole J. Georges, Annie Danger, Len Plass and more more more!