Last Call: "She - Deconstructing Female Identity" at the Arts Exchange in White Plains, closing June 25

Nancy Davidson, Netella, 1998 (right) and Maebe, 1994 (center)

at She in the Arts Exchange

She: Deconstructing Female Identity will close Saturday, June 25th with an exciting "finissage" of artists' talks and craft beer tasting.  If you have not seen this truly excellent show - hurry! Open today from 12-5 pm and tomorrow 12 - 8 pm.  The festivities start at 5 pm.

Laurel Garcia Colvin, Beyond a Room of Our Own, 2016, installation

The real heart and soul of the show seems to emanate from Laurel Garcia Colvin's Beyond a Room of Our Own, invoking Virginia Woolf's long essay beseeching society to support women writers.  Here the room celebrates great contributors to the arts with 18th-century Rococo-esque blue and white motifs that grace chairs, wallpaper and framed group portraits  On the floor you can nestle into a comfy pouf to read several books on feminist subjects scattered at your feet.  Colvin said that the books will be donated to White Plains Public Library after the exhibition closes.  

 Laurel Garcia Colvin, Sampler in Beyond a Room of Our Own, 2016

Works are by Nicole Awai, Valerie Piraino, Laurel Garcia Colvin, Mari Ogihara, Nancy Davidson, Kathy Ruttenberg, Marcy B. Freedman, Barbara Segal, Debbie Han, Tricia Wright, and Rebecca Mushtare.

Don't miss this last opportunity to see this insightful and fun visual essay on the feminine mystique in our time.

The Arts Exchange - Bank Room Gallery is located on street level in the ArtsWestchester Building, 31 Mamaroneck Avenue, White Plains, New York.


Best wishes for the weekend,
Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.
Director
New York Arts Exchange
www.nyarts-exchange.com 

ARTISTS:

Last Call: Miriam Schapiro, A Visionary, at the National Academy through May 8th.

Miriam Shapiro and Sherry Brody, Dollhouse, 1972

Miriam Schapiro (1923 - 2015) was one of the founding member of the Feminist Art Program at California Institute of the Arts (CalState), in Los Angeles, in 1971, based on the Women's Art Program at Fresno State College, founded in the previous year.  Schapiro and Judy Chicago (b. 1939) led the team of artists who created Womanhouse (1972) with Faith Wilding, Mira Schor, among dozens of others. Miriam Schapiro was a major influence on the feminist art movement, earning this activist artist a permanent place in art history as a trailblazer and visionary (hence the title of the show).

Miriam Schapiro, Lady Gengi's Maze, 1979

The current retrospect at the National Academy Museum and School summarizes her characteristic contributions. Beginning with her early Abstract Expressionist work that transitioned into her hard-edge Shrine series, this modest selection of her works serves as a fitting memorial for this a highly gifted artist who also ushered in the Pattern and Decoration Movement.   

Miriam Schapiro, My History, 1987

Sadly, the National Academy has announced that it will close permanently on June 1st, explained by the director Maura Reilly on its Museum. Therefore, please make a special effort to visit this marvelous Miriam Schapiro show accompanied by three other fine exhibitions:

An American Collection, through May 8th

Method Order Metrics, through May 8th

Tony Rosenthal, Alamo, 1967 (model for the Astor Place "cube")

And Contemporary Highlights from the Collection, through May 8th

The National Academy was founded in 1825 by American Academy artists Asher B. Durand, Samuel F. B. Morse, Thomas Cole, Rembrandt Peale and Ithiel Town.  At first homeless, its original home was on Fourth Avenue and 23rd Street in late 1800s.  Then it sold the building to Met Life in 1899, was homeless again and then moved into the Archer Milton and Ann Hyatt Huntington mansion on Fifth Avenue between 89th and 90th Streets in 1942. Time to move on again . . . . .

Happy May Day -  and please follow us on Intagram  and Facebook :)

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director, New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com