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Bitch School
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All
photographs of featured art work by Frank Gimpaya
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(The Bronx, January
2, 2002) Longwood Arts Project presents Bitch School, a group visual
arts exhibit curated by Eddie Torres and Robert Blackson.
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exhibition takes place at the Longwood Arts Gallery, the visual arts facility
of the Bronx Council on the Arts, located at 965 Longwood Avenue between
Beck Street and Kelly Street in the Bronx from January 26 - March 30, 2002.
A public opening and reception takes place from 12:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
on Saturday, January 26. Normal gallery hours are Monday through Friday
9 a.m. - 5 p.m., Saturdays 12-4 p.m. and by appointment. |
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word "bitch" has
two conflicting definitions for its use in common street vernacular. The
first is more closely related to the word's actual definition; that of a
female dog. In prison culture, a "bitch" or "punk" is a male rape victim.
On the streets of the city, the word has come to be used to indicate a passive
male. In their early 1990s album, Break Like The Wind, mock-rock band Spinal
Tap released a song entitled Bitch School. The song chronicles, in over-the-top
comic fashion, a misogynist academy in which women are taught passivity.
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second common usage of the word
"bitch" refers
to a woman who is considered petty or cruel. Often times the word is used
against any woman who exhibits assertiveness, self-reliance, and strength
(breaking the mold established by the initial definition of the word). In
Bitch School, artists explore our attitudes toward strong women against
traditional gender roles. The exhibit features work by Christa Donner,
Nancy Floyd, Katharine Kuharic, Josephine Meckseper, Rachel Selekman, Diana
Shpungin and Two Girls Working: Tiffany Ludwig and Renee Piechocki. |
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| Christa
Donner will
present an original site-specific wall drawing that will literally explore
the inner workings of a high school clique. Ms. Donner combines graphic
medical imagery with images of women drawn from slick fashion spreads to
dissect the complex relationships between sexuality, illness, power, vulnerability
and popular perceptions of women's bodies. |
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| Nancy
Floyd presents from images from her series Stopping Power. Stopping
Power looks at the social, political and historical implications of
female gun ownership in America. The project explores, through photographs
and text, the many reasons why women choose to arm themselves. |
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| Katharine
Kuharic presents two "women's studies tableau" paintings, Show Quality
Bitches and Wild Cherry. Show Quality Bitches is a painting
about the projection of our egos. The central figure is Jon Benet Ramsey,
the child who was mysteriously murdered and famously linked with her backstage
mother. Ms. Kuharic has likened Jon Benet's experience to that of a dog
show. She is presented as a show quality bitch trotted about in the hopes
of catching the judge's eye. Wild Cherry chronicles the span between
cradle and grave and the shifting roles that a woman may play. Under the
banner-like motif of life and death reside both the nude object and the
militaristic (masculine) garbed women. The title, and branch of wild cherry
blossoms, refers to the loss of virginity that may separate or determine
these postures. In these paintings, Ms. Kuharic hopes to confront shifting
and contradictory positions on sexuality, class, and race. |
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| Josephine
Meckseper presents pages from her FAT Magazine, a conceptual
piece in the form of a publication. FAT mocks mainstream tabloids'
sensationalism while using its strategies to deflate the art world's high
seriousness. Ms. Meckseper presents a visual assault of lurid images, a
parody of the media's image of sexuality and actual essays on art and culture. |
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| Rachel
Selekman presents pocketbooks that are cast in cement thereby emphasizing
their physical weight as well as transforming functional "containers" into
solid, non-functional masses. Ms. Selekman uses pocketbooks, in these instances,
because of their associations with women. These forms interest her as extensions
of the female body, appendages of sorts, and ones with which she explores
ideas regarding weight, both physical and emotional. |
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| Diana
Shpungin explores ambivalence about female sensuality with her video
Kiss. Kiss presents a "make-out session" from the point of
view of a video camera pressed against the kisser's mouth. The kissing,
initially soft and subdued, becomes more disturbing and repellent as it
becomes more passionate. |
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Girls Working is the collaborative team of Tiffany Ludwig and
Renee Piechocki. Their piece, Trappings, is an ongoing, multi-media
project that explores unique styles of feminism and how women use clothing
to express their vision of power. At Longwood, visitors will be able to
view photographs of 38 different women and listen to their stories about
clothing and power on personal cd players. |
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Running concurrently
with Bitch School is New York City High Rise Apartments, collages
by Bronx artist Olufunke.
Also,
we are proud to announce that The 2001 Longwood Cyber Exhibit now on-line
at www.longwoodcyber.org and
features original on-line art by Tomie Arai, George Crespo, Marcos Dimas
and Jaime Permuth. Longwood Cyber provides four to eight artists a year
with free access to hardware, software, Internet connectivity, workshops,
technical consultations and artist honoraria so they may begin to experiment
with on-line technologies as creative tools. A Program of Bronx Council
on the Arts, Longwood Arts Project is funded, in part, by National Endowment
for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts' Visual Arts Program,
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The Jerome Foundation, The
Andy Warhol Foundation, Verizon Foundation, Microsoft, The Chase Manhattan
Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, Krasdale Foods, Bronx Borough President
Adolfo Carrion and the Bronx Delegation of the City Council of New York
and BCA Members. Longwood Arts Project is a member of the National Association
of Artists Organizations, National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture
and Media Channel.
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page
by Emin Mancheril
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