User:Emilyarthistory/sandbox

Gloria: Another Look at Feminist Art of the 1970s (art exhibition)

Gloria: Another Look at Feminist Art of the 1970s was an exhibition presented by White Columns in New York City from September 13 to October 20, 2002. Curated by Catherine Morris and Ingrid Schaffner, Gloria was a decade-long survey of feminist action and performance-based art in the 1970s and early 1980s. The curators' goal was to remind contemporary audiences of the radical essence of fist-generation feminist artists.

Curators

Catherine Morris is the senior curator for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Before joining the Brooklyn Museum in 2009, Morris worked as an independent curator. In a 2010 interview for Afterimage, Morris discusses the "derision" she felt from the younger generation towards feminism while working on Gloria.

Ingrid Schaffner is an American curator specializing in contemporary art. From 2000 to 2015, Schaffner directed the exhibition program at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania.

Concept

The name Gloria—after Gloria Steinem, Gloria Stivic, and the Patti Smith song Gloria—intended to evoke the idea of woman as "activist, sex symbol, girl next-door, and destabilizing force." The name prompted Morris and Schaffner to encourage contemporary audiences to view the feminist works of the 1970s and early '80s as both art and activism. The show was primarily performance based. Most of the works exhibited at Gloria centred around the theme of "one's own body and how it is seen." Among these provocative works were Adrian Piper's nude self-portraits "Food for the Spirit", and Carolee Schneemann's 1974 performance piece "Interior Scroll," where she famously read from, and drew a paper scroll out of her vagina. Morris and Schaffner desired to rid early feminist art of its "embarrassing connotations," and emphasize its groundbreaking qualities.

Artists

• Laurie Anderson
• Eleanor Antin
• Lynda Benglis
• Dara Birnbaum
• Valie Export
• Nancy Grossman
• Jenny Holzer
• Joan Joans
• Mary Kelly
• Barbara Kruger
• Ana Medieta
• Yoko Ono
• Adrian Piper
• Martha Rosler
• Carolee Schneemann
• Cindy Sherman
• Mimi Smith
• Nancy Spero
• Mierle Laderman Ukeles
• Hannah Wilke
• Martha Wilson
• Jacki Apple

Reception

The New York Times review criticized Morris' and Schaffner's "wry" view of contemporary audiences, and suggested that Gloria could be considered an example of "historical editing," and motivated by embarrassment. Ultimately well received, Gloria was conclusively acknowledged as "a good show" that embodied the ambition of the women's art movement in the 1970s.

Time Out reviewed the exhibition positively, arguing that Morris and Schaffner urged "postfeminists" to witness and appreciate a past that looks a lot like the present. Gloria encouraged contemporary viewers to look at early feminist art not only as a spectacle, but as synonymous with social change.

A criticism of Gloria was that, excluding Yoko Ono, Adrian Piper, and Ana Mendieta, all of the featured artists were white, middle-class, and conventionally attractive women. According to Martha Schwendener, all of the artists “fit the model of beauty proffered by the patriarchal mainstream media outlets against which these artists rebelled.”