Joe Ansell has been named Interim Director of the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University. This is in addition to his regular job as head of the Art Department.
The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City has bought two photos by Deborah Bright for its permanent collection.
An “early softcover” of Roman sex: 100 B.C. to 250 A.D. by John R. Clarke is being offered by Quality Paperback Bookclub.
Lynne Constantine and Suzanne Scott, performing as “Peripheral visions,” presented an installation and performance art piece at the “Committing Voice” conference co-sponsored by the Goddard Alumni Association and Brown University. The piece “[IM]balance sheet” used installation art, mixed media, spoken word and multimedia to explore with humor and drama the structural isssues (and global ramifications) of personal indebtedness. In October, they will present a collaborative multimedia performance/presentation workshop for the “Feminism and Social Action” conference at SUNY New Paltz. Their theme will be “Guerrilla Pedagogy: Liberating Student Feminism and Social Activism in the Traditional College Classroom.”
Maria DeGuzmán of SPIR: Conceptual Photography (http://home.earthlink.net/~mdeguzman) announces her own new queer photo-text website entitled Camera Query. It can be found at http://www.cameraquery.com
James Duesing’s new animation “Tender Bodies” will be screened in NARRATIVE at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI, December Conversations At the Edge, Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, September 18th Fantoche, International Festival for Animation, Best of the World Program, Baden, Switzerland. His two animations “Maxwell’s Demon” and “Law of Averages” will be screened hourly on the outdoor Jumbotron in the Pittsburgh Cultural district daily throughout the fall.
Laurie Toby Edison’s photography project “Familiar Men” has now been published. Familiar men: a book of nudes includes 60 fine-art black & white photographs, an essay on masculinity by Richard F. Dutcher and Debbie Notkin, and an introduction by masculinity theorist Michael Kimmel. The book is available from SHIFTING FOCUS PRESS for $25.00. The opening reception is September 25th and an article with photo is expected in the San Francisco chronicle. Edison and Notkin’s previous book, Women en large: a book of fat nudes, is in its ninth year in print and is an international small press bestseller.
The Experimental Performance Institute (EPI), in residence at New College of California, has announced three expanded programs for fall 2003 (BA, MA, MFA) with an emphasis in experimental performance and a concentration in “Performance activism” and “Queer performance.” The institute offers Master Artist in Residence Directing Opportunities and one of the residencies will be focused on queer performance. For more info, go to http://www.epiarts.org or call Zachary Barnett at 415-437-3487
Barbara Hammer’s films “Resisting paradise” and “History lessons” (as well as others) will be screened several times this fall. The screenings appear in the calendar for September-November. She will be a judge in the documentary competition at the International Feature Project in New York, September 22-26. She has curated a show (via Power Point) of feminist anti-war art which will be part of the “Feminism and Social Action” conference at SUNY New Paltz on Saturday, October 18.
George Kimmerling is one of the artists-in-residence at the LMCC/Workspace (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council) in the Woolworth Building in New York. Open studios were held on 20-21 September 2003.
Catherine Lord reports that her The summer of her baldness: a cancer improvisation will be published by University of Texas Press next spring. It includes pictures and words.
“Forgotten angels: a matter of honor” is Ann P. Meredith’s new project. It will be a 90-minute documentary film, an intimate portrait of women and children whose lives were forever changed by the military. Filming will begin in September 2003. If you were abused in any way by the military and/or government, please participate by contacting Ann Meredith at 510-883-1948 or annpmer@pacbell.net
Congratulations to Richard Meyer, winner of the 2003 Charles C. Eldredge Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Art for his recent book Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century American Art (Oxford University Press, 2002). Meyer is associate professor and acting chair of the department of art history at the University of Southern California. The Charles C. Eldredge Prize is awarded by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and seeks to recognize originality and thoroughness of research, excellence of writing, and clarity of method. It is especially meant to honor those who deepen or focus debates in the field or who broaden the discipline by reaching beyond traditional boundaries.
Mary Patten reports several exhibitions, screenings, and projects: “Cheney & Powell, January 1991” at Art in General, New York (through October 25); a 2002 piece “Letters, conversations: New York-Chicago, fall, 2001” was broadcast in August on “Downtown Community TV presents” (Manhattan cable show of artist projects). and at 10th Chicago Underground Film Festival (August 2003), at Women in the Director’s Chair’s International Film & Video Festival (March 2003), and at the Betty Rymer Gallery in Chicago (January 2003); a new video installation “Seen/unseen” is on view at University of Memphis Art Museum this fall, as part of “Operation Human Intelligence” and was seen at Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago in May and June 2003; the Video Data Bank has picked up two recent videotapes for distribution (“Letters, conversations” and “Letter to a missing woman”) (catalog at http://www.vdb.org); and Mary is currently involved in a new collaborative/public project called “Feeltank Chicago” (http://www.seedwiki.com/page.cfm?doc=FeelTankChicago&wikiid=2496)
A conversation with Sheila Pepe which took place on 15 January 2003 can be found in Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts. In the conversation which took place at Grace Street Theater in Richmond, Pepe comments on her work and process from “lap to gallery” in light of the idea of the radically local. Panelists and audience members provide additional commentary and questions. http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu
Caucus co-chair Maura Reilly has been appointed Elizabeth A. Sackler Curator of Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The new job has precluded a “Dyke notes” in this issue, but the column will return in a future issue. News and notes contributed to Maura have been included in the calendar and elsewhere. Maura also received Honorable Mention for the 2002-2003 CLAGS Fellowship.
Painter Pepa Santamaria is the featured artist in Harrington lesbian fiction quarterly, vol. 4, no. 2 (2003). HLFQ is published by Alice Street Editions of Harrington Park Press, Binghamton, NY.
M A X I N E F I N E
September 19, 1942- June 7, 2003
Maxine Fine, the beloved friend of all who knew her, and my dear friend for more than thirty years, passed during the early morning of June 7, 2003. Maxine lived a considered life dedicated to her art -- her life exemplified the beauty of a consciously chosen spiritual life.
Maxine’s dedication and courage, her level of achievement and excellence have been recognized; she has been the recipient of several national awards, including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1998) and Gottlieb Foundation (1999) grants. Maxine was a pioneering member of the Lesbian Art Movement; her work was published in the 1977 Lesbian Issue of Heresies and in 1978 she exhibited in the groundbreaking A Lesbian Show. On June 5, 2003 Maxine learned that she was the recipient of the Astraea Lesbian Action Foundation Visual Arts Award. A retrospective and catalogue are planned for 2005 at the Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
A cancer survivor of twenty-five years, Maxine wrote, “My illness set in motion the move I would make to New Mexico [in 1981]. It was a difficult transition, but ... the years here, and the work I have created, have borne out the rightness of the decision. The environment in which I live has enriched my inner life to become a deep source in my art.”
Maxine’s luminous spirit, her gentle acceptance, and beautiful heart graced our lives. She wrote of her art, “Behind all of this lies the desire for completeness. And a sense of one who can never know the whole story. This is the source of great sadness and of great happiness.”
-- Flavia Rando - frando@earthlink.net
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Bhupen Khakhar, painter of social and personal narratives, died on August 8 in Baroda, India. He was 69. Obituary by Holland Cotter in the New York times on August 18th.