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At the Arc Gallery's March 4 exhibition launch, director Iris Goldstein (left) and grant writer Cheri Reif Naselli say this month it's essential to display good art, despite gender.
Calling all female artists: How far have they come?
by Liz M. Kobak
March 08, 2011
Liz M. Kobak/MEDILL
Artist Krista Jiannacopoulos (left) said she is thrilled that the Woman Made Gallery is showcasing her work during Women's History Month.
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First United Methodist Church at the Chicago TempleArc GalleryWoman Made GalleryHumble beginnings: Queen's sculpture banned
Before the Art Institute of Chicago hosted the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, the Isabella Association, an alliance of Chicago-based suffragists, commissioned an American female sculptor to render a bronze monument to Queen Isabella of Spain, the primary sponsor of Christopher Columbus’ 1492 voyage to the Americas. But the Art Institute’s president declined further sponsorship of the bronze sculpture and excluded it from the Exposition.
Wait a second.
Some may say if Queen Isabella had not funded Columbus’ voyage to the Americas, would there have been a Columbian Exposition in the first place?
“Let us redouble our efforts to make sure that all women and girls in our country have a chance to live up to their God-given potential . . . who in their own ways are making it possible for generations to come after them to seize and hold their rightful place,” the U.S. Secretary of State said in a speech last year during Women’s History Month.
Three local exhibition spaces are using this year’s Women’s History Month to illustrate the spirit of her words.
A pastor’s vision
Four months ago, Pastor Phil Blackwell of the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple, 77 W. Washington St., transformed the building’s second floor waiting area into an art gallery,
Starting this week and throughout the month, it will showcase only the works of women.
Overstuffed with antique couches and portraits of former pastors, Blackwell said the outdated room needed to transform into something of greater functional and symbolic significance.
“It said to me that we lived in the past,” he said.
The church’s exhibition curator, Patricia Devine-Reed, said it will make up for lost time.
“We haven’t had an opportunity to do an exhibition before now,” she said, “because we haven’t had a space.”
As Devine-Reed reflected on the exhibition’s contents, consisting of seven female artist’s works rendered in mediums such as quilt, paint, watercolor and photography, she said jubilantly: “Every year, there should be a women’s exhibition.”
The exhibition signifies a growing equality, Blackwell said, between the sexes in the art world.
“I think it’s a forceful emphasis,” he said, “when you focus on a segment of the artistic population.”
Also for the first time in the church’s history, the pastor blessed three classrooms in honor of three 19th century female advocates for women’s rights who were members of the church, including Frances Willard, former president of the Woman’s National Council of the United States.
It’s no coincidence, Blackwell said, that these spaces in the church were dedicated this month.
“It was a conscious decision,” he said.
Exhibiting quality art, irrelevant of creator’s gender
On Friday, the Arc Gallery at 832 W. Superior, hosted an exhibition that displayed male and female artists’ works together - unusual considering its timing and the gallery’s history.
Founded in 1973 during the feminist movement, the non-profit gallery only offered membership to women and exhibited female artists’ work. Arc Gallery’s initial mission was to place typically secluded artworks in the public eye.
“Women had a hard time showing their work in a professional environment,” said Cheri Reif Naselli, vice president of the gallery’s grants.
Now the gallery shows works by both sexes. And this month, the exhibition features photographs, paintings and representational art by four female and three male artists.
The left walls of the space are covered with a series of abstract portraits rendered in pastel watercolors and followed by photographic portraits of South Side Chicagoans. Toward the gallery’s center are three-dimensional, representational art composed of cardboard and tape.
Unlike “Where Are We Now? 30 Years of Feminism,” a 2008 exhibition of female artists’ works pertaining to feminism and Women’s History Month, the gallery’s president said the pieces in the current exhibition were chosen solely for their aesthetic qualities.
“We look for good art,” said gallery president Iris Goldstein, “And that’s our focus.”
When the gallery members selected Alberto Aguilar’s cardboard artworks to be a part of the exhibition, he initially felt like an outsider in a feminine art atmosphere.
“At first I thought I was being intrusive,” said the 37-year-old freelance artist and teacher at Harold Washington College, “But now I don’t even feel it.”
The gallery, Goldstein said, has organically changed over time and is not: “a particularly feminist gallery that hunts for a certain type of political message.”
One female artist in the exhibition said female pioneers in art inspired her to follow in their footsteps.
Although her works are watercolors conceptually based on personal family photographs, Washington-based artist Sue Sommers, 51, said she admired early 16th-century female Renaissance painters who used fashionable, thick mediums of oil and tempera.
“They made amazing work,” Sommers said, “and they didn’t let anybody stop them.”
14th International Women’s Exhibition: For female artists only
When the Art Institute of Chicago was founded in 1893, names of Italian Renaissance artists were engraved in its Michigan Avenue stone façade – all of them belonging to men. But according to a recent survey, 67 percent of the students enrolled in the School of the Art Institute are women.
The director of one local art gallery continues her quest to change the imbalanced dynamic.
“Things have gotten better,” said Beate Minkovski, executive director of the Women Made Gallery, “[but] not enough is done to educate the public about women’s artists.”
Since opening in 1992, the non-profit gallery at 685 N. Milwaukee, has showcased pieces by more than 6,500 female artists. On Friday, the two-story exhibition space launched its “14th International Women’s Exhibition.”
“At Women Made, every month is Women’s History Month,” Minkovski said.
Hung on the gallery’s right wall is a group of rainbow-colored paintings on canvas that embody two seemingly conflicting aesthetics, according to the artist.
“It’s the combination of the inspiration of the Chicago architecture with the bright, vibrant colors of Southern California,” Krista Jiannacopoulos said.
She said she was especially proud that her work will be showcased this month in the Women Made gallery.
“I’m just so happy to be here,” she said.
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