PAST

Women's Assembly: Two Scenes from a Radio Play

March 15-22, 2008

There will be a series of screenings to accompany the exhibition:

Wednesday, March 19th at The Chisenhale Gallery, 7:30pm

La Raison Avant La Passion / Reason Over Passion (Joyce Wieland in collaboration with Hollis Frampton, Canada, 1968-69)
537 algorithmically determined combinations of the letters in the title, Pierre Elliot Trudeau's most characteristic motto, are superimposed over a fast-motion trip through the landscapes of Canada. We will be screening a 16mm print of the film.

Information about the Chisenhale can be found at www.chisenhale.org.uk

Wednesday 26th March, 7:30 pm at the Hex:

Judy Chicago & the California Girls (Judith Dancoff, USA, 1971)
A historical documentary by and about women, at the birth of the Women's Art Movement in Fresno, California, 1971.

What do you do if you like to sew but don't have a spare room to set up a sewing space? Let Yourself Sew , a magazine published in Canada in 1972, has an answer: make a sewing capsule. By painting a corner of the room and laying some coloured carpet, a private space (both mentally and physically) can be carved out of an everyday living room, allowing for temporary relief from other demands.

Although the depiction of this space in the magazine now appears quite humorous in its garish 1970s colours and naïveté, beneath its orange exterior the image makes a serious point about the difficulties we all go through in order to establish creative breathing room for work. Notably, this magazine is dealing with craft-oriented, “private” work: the making of sweaters, blankets, and wall hangings. Pretty things which are semi-functional and could be shared among a close group of friends.

A major achievement of feminist activity in the 1960s and ‘70s was the transformation of typically “female” private spaces into communal places where radical thought and action could be nurtured. The sewing corner could suddenly become the headquarters of the revolution.

Can something that happens in private be radical? Can a blanket change the world? Do gender politics still matter? A reminder of why these questions are still relevant was provided recently when Grayson Perry answered the question “Why are there no great women painters?” with this answer:

Desmond Morris says that men make better artists because they are greater risk-takers; on the other hand, he thinks that women are better organisers and diplomats and more suited to become politicians.

Perry, as part of a trio of male art professionals being asked questions in a newspaper, doesn't upend the very premise of the question but responds with a tired cliché about biological inclinations in gender.

Maybe it is best to avoid this issue of male/female, and rather talk about radicalism, and how it might function in a moment when just about anything can be absorbed into art's mainstream. In a moment which is hungry for more art, more objects, more artists, perhaps quietly turning one's back and making something in private, to be shared with a small group of people, is a gesture with real potential. Perhaps a blanket can be radical.