Critics Page
Guest Critic
Welcome to the Feminist Institute’s Guest Critic Edition of the Brooklyn Rail
By Kathleen LandyWomen have shared their wisdom with one another for millennia, in oral histories that teach and inform subsequent generations of women about family, home, sex, power, politics, and survival. But patriarchal histories didn’t include these contributions. Huh!
In Conversation
Alison Knowles with Carolee Schneemann
Knowles and Schneemann, in their own ways, indelibly shaped performance art’s trajectory throughout the late 20th century. In October, the two artists met at Knowles’s Manhattan loft to discuss Fluxus, feminism, life with partners, friendships, families, and art.
No footage? No problem! Eva Hesse: A Feature Documentary Crafted from Archives
By Marcie BegleiterWe sat in the dusty Manhattan office of a well-known director of art documentaries, towering piles of DVDs threatening to topple over and bury us beneath decades of his work.
The Feminist Institute
By John CarvalhoI met Kathleen Landy (then Finley) many years ago when she was an undergraduate student and I was a visiting assistant professor at Villanova University.
My History With History
By Kashana CauleyUntil a few years ago, I wasn’t a fan of history. I didn’t hunt down explanations of the present from the past.
Lifting the Mask
By Alexandra DeanMy mission as a filmmaker is to investigate the ways we forget ourselves. Often we disguise what is painful, difficult or challenging behind a shiny persona.
In Conversation
Helène Aylon with Monika Fabijanska
To fully appreciate the importance of a feminist archive, one has to remember the loneliness of the first generation of feminist artists: absence of role-models and art on museum walls that they could embrace as theirs.
Pussy Speak Out
By Karen FinleyMen, pay attention
In Conversation
Liz Nielsen and Carolina Wheat-Nielsen with Jessamyn Fiore
Liz Nielsen and Carolina Wheat-Nielsen are co-founders and directors of the artist-run gallery Elijah Wheat Showroom in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Considering Mary Beth Edelson’s Some Living American Women Artists
By Kat GriefenMary Beth Edelson’s best known and most widely distributed work may be Some Living American Women Artists/Last Supper (1972) in which she replaced and framed Christ and his disciples in Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper with photographs of more than 80 women artists.
Judith Bernstein’s Archive
By Jillian McManeminWhen I first encountered Judith’s work, I felt aligned with her crude sense of humor, her larger-than-life rage against oppressive politics, and her evident rebelliousness, not only as a feminist but as a Jersey girl—as someone who says “fuck” a lot.
My Women Mentors: Mentorship as Activism
By Natalie FrankAs #MeToo began, I wrote in ARTnews about my experiences with sexual harassment. But in writing about these men, I realized I was only telling one piece of my story. I also wanted to address my women mentors.
Forbidden Archeology of the Divine Feminine
By Otep ShamayaBefore we trowel the forbidden archeology of the divine feminine, I must dismantle any deliberate distortions that this essay is an all-out assault on men. It isn’t.
HelloBETTY
By Alyson PalmerAlthough Manhattan MiniStorage offers “secure reliable and clean storage, access controlled, and continually monitored,” I’ve never believed that the brightly lit row of cages was the appropriate final resting place for the decades of output from my band, BETTY.
Amy Cutler: Using Magical Materiality as Feminist Critique
By Kristen RacanielloAmy Cutler has dedicated her career to the cultural subtexts associated with womanhood. She draws a network connecting history and mythology, revealing the guts of that animal-woman as a straw man other to an audience of power.
In Conversation
Claudia Rankine with Julie Scelfo
When it comes to examining the complexities of race in America, few scholars bring the clarity of vision as Claudia Rankine, the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University and author of five poetry volumes, including Citizen: An American Lyric, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2015.
The Oldest Woman in the Room: A Feminist Life Lesson from my Mother
By Laurie Gwen ShapiroBack in the Stone Age of the early 1980s when people still relied on landlines, I was a latchkey kid who often answered the phone for my parents before they got home from work.
Managing the Archive
By Sarah WatsonArchives teach us about our histories by what is recorded, filed, and preserved as much as they do by what is omitted, lost, or disregarded.
Women’s Art Collectives: Framing the Future
By Kathleen WentrackThe decade of the 1970s was an unprecedented moment for women artists and strengthened by the actions of the women’s movement of the 1960s, feminist art became, and continues to be, a recognizable force.
In Conversation
Lisa Le Feuvre with Keith Wilson
Curator and inaugural Executive Director of the Holt/Smithson Foundation, Lisa Le Feuvre, spoke with Keith Wilson about the necessity of a clear mission statement, the importance of the word “creative,” and what it means for a foundation to honor an artist’s work.
