Tag Archives: Shinique Smith

NASTY WOMEN AT GAVLAK

I don’t really look for inspiration. I just let it come to me, but I don’t stop working. Work comes from work. When I’m stuck I just keep working and make terrible looking things until something else comes out of it. That’s the creative process… You can’t think yourself out a right action. You have to act yourself into right thinking. You can’t sit there and smoke cigarettes and look at the wall waiting for inspiration. — Marilyn Minter

NASTY WOMEN—a celebratory group exhibition at Gavlak Los Angeles—”seeks to uplift communities underrepresented in contemporary art and American visual culture at large… [giving] a platform to a diverse array of perspectives and female voices throughout art history.”*

The show is dedicated to the memory of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. See link below for details.

NASTY WOMEN*

Through December 12.

Gavlak Los Angeles

1700 South Santa Fe Avenue, Suite 440, downtown Los Angeles.

NASTY WOMEN features work by Tiffany Alfonseca, Candida Alvarez, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Judie Bamber, Whitney Bedford, Andrea Belag, April Bey, Delia Brown, Deborah Brown, Karen Carson, Elizabeth Catlett, Gisela Colón, Patricia Cronin, Kim Dacres, Linda Daniels, Vaginal Davis, Sonia Delaunay, Florence Derive, Nicole Eisenman, Judith Eisler, Anonymous (Emilian School), Beverly Fishman, Helen Frankenthaler, Viola Frey, Francesca Gabbiani, Vania Gunarti, Trulee Hall, Jenny Holzer, Deborah Kass, Angelica Kauffman, Rachel Kaye, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Becky Kolsrud, Marcia Kure, Yayoi Kusama, Nancy Lorenz, Ann Magnuson, Kate Millett, Anne Minich, Marilyn Minter, Jesse Mockrin, Betty Parsons, Ebony G. Patterson, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Fay Ray, Katherine Read, Joan Semmel, Shinique Smith, Sylvia Snowden, Linda Stark, Sophie Tæuber-Arp, AlexisTeplin, Betty Tompkins, Patssi Valdez, Marnie Weber, Brenna Youngblood, and Lisa Yuskavage.

Nasty Women, Gavlak Los Angeles, October 31, 2020–December 31, 2020, from top: Lisa Anne Auerbach, Keep Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries, 2020, wool, image © Auerbach; Kim Dacres, Whitney, 2019, auto tires, bicycle tires, bicycle tubes, wood, bicycle parts, zip ties, and screws, photograph by Sebastian Bach, image © Dacres; Judie Bamber, Nancy Nielson (Miss April 1961), 2019, watercolor on paper, image © Bamber; Viola Frey, Stubborn Woman, Orange Hands, 2004, ceramic and glazes, photograph by Chris Watson, image © 2020 Frey and the Artists’ Legacy Foundation, licensed by ARS, New York; Nasty Women installation view; April Bey, Atlantica Archives (Earth’s Feminism) II, 2020, digitally printed woven blanket with hand-sewn “African” Chinese knock-off wax fabric and glitter, image © Bey; Karen Carson, Power Mad, 2011, acrylic on unstretched canvas, image © Carson; self-portrait Woman Artist Painting, circa mid-17th century, anonymous artist from the Emilian School, oil on canvas; Lisa Anne Auerbach, Karma is a Nasty Woman, 2020, wool, image © Auerbach. Images courtesy of the artists and Gavlak, Los Angeles and Palm Beach.

SHINIQUE SMITH AND HAMZA WALKER

POWER AT SPRÜTH MAGERS

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“The cultural contributions of women and women of color are still underrepresented in the art world, and we are still asked to contextualize our practice in ways that other privileged artists simply are not.” — Shinique Smith*

“I have recently been exploring the idea of doing my work in secret. I was inspired by discovering the work of The United Order of Tents. They are a secret society of black nurses. They have supported each other and done good works since the Civil War. The Mother Emmanuel Church met in secret for 35 years, while black churches were banned in South Carolina after the Nat Turner rebellion.

“I don’t really have time to explain my work to people who feel that I have an identity and they don’t. I don’t have time to unpack all that. I’m focused on using black feminist theory or any other tools that can help me sharpen my knife, and make better work.” — Simone Leigh*

POWER: WORK BY AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN FROM THE NINETEENTH CENTURY TO NOW, a survey of over 60 works by 37 artists—including Ellen Gallagher, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Betye Saar, Ntozake Shange, Mickalene Thomas, Kara Walker, and Carrie Mae Weems—is now on view at Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles.

The exhibition, curated by Todd Levin, also includes a selection of images from the Ralph DeLuca Collection of African American Vernacular Photography.

POWER: WORK BY AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN FROM THE NINETEENTH CENTURY TO NOW, through June 10.

SPRÜTH MAGERS, 5900 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.

*Artists’ quotes from Power, the booklet published on the occasion of the exhibition:

spruethmagers.com/exhibitions/445

ALSO SEE: theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/apr/05/kara-walker-karon-davis-power-black-female-artists

The participating artists: Beverly Buchanan, Elizabeth Catlett, Sonya Clark, Renee Cox, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Karon Davis, Minnie Evans, Nona Faustine, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Ellen Gallagher, Leslie Hewitt, Clementine Hunter, Steffani Jemison, Jennie C. Jones, Simone Leigh, Julie Mehretu, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady, Sondra Perry, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Joyce J. Scott, Emmer Sewell, Ntozake Shange, Xaviera Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Shinique Smith, Renee Stout, Mickalene Thomas, Alma Woodsey Thomas, Rosie Lee Tompkins, Kara Walker, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Carrie Mae Weems, and Brenna Youngblood.

Shinique Smith, Bale Variant No. 0023 (Totem), 2014
Clothing, fabric, accesories, ribbon, rope, and wood
243.8 x 50.8 x 50.8 cm
96 x 20 x 20 inches
Image credit: Shinique Smith and Sprüth Magers

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Tag Archives: Shinique Smith

NASTY WOMEN AT GAVLAK

SHINIQUE SMITH AND HAMZA WALKER

POWER AT SPRÜTH MAGERS