Cheri Gaulke

Peep, Totter, Fly on Hollywood Blvd

Peep Totter Fly: Cheri Gaulke at LACE

in Exhibitions / News / Performance / Video  by Cheri Gaulke

photos by Paul Redmond http://paul-redmond.com/

Here are a few shots from my performance Peep Totter Fly at LACE on September 27. Performers in white activated my wall of red high heels by putting them on and walking on Hollywood Boulevard. When they returned to the gallery they offered the shoes to the audience and all mayhem was unleashed as people tried on the red high heels. I’ve got shoes in women’s sizes 5-16 which means they fit men sized 6.5-17.5 or so. The wall of shoes is meant to be interactive and viewers are allowed to wear the shoes while in the gallery. I have found that men really get a kick out of this as they have been curious about what it feels like but have never had a chance to try on shoes that would fit them.

So I invite anyone and everyone to come check out the installation which will be open through January 29, 2012. The installation is more than a wall of high heels. It has a beautiful video of high-heeled legs walking through natural environments – slogging through streams, lavafields, beaches, geo-thermal sites and against dramatic vistas. It was shot in locations as varied as Los Angeles, Death Valley and Iceland. There’s also a lovely sound score that makes the video quite mesmerizing. For more info and the hours of LACE, go to http://www.losangelesgoeslive.org/. All photos in this post are by Paul Redmond.

– Cheri Gaulke

Doin’ It on Tape: Video from the Woman’s Building

in News / Video  by Cheri Gaulke

Video still from "Eclipse in the Western Palace" by Cheri Gaulke, 1976

On Sunday November 13, 7:30 pm, Los Angeles Filmforum and Otis College of Art and Design present Doin’ It on Tape: Video from the Woman’s Building. The screening is the 7th in the series Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945-1980 at the Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd (at Las Palmas), Los Angeles CA 90028. Excerpts from two of my videotapes will be included in the program – Eclipse in the Western Palace (1976) and Our Lady of LA (1987).  To purchase tickets go to http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/209055.

Jerri Allyn and Alex Juhasz host this screening, and introduce video excerpts from 1971 through 1987, from the Woman’s Building and LA Women’s Video Center Archives (LAWVC). Video art, documentary features, and raw footage touch on the 1893 Woman’s Building at the Chicago World’s Fair, women artists in Southern California circa 1968-1973, feminist education, lesbian art, the goddess in the city of angels, violence against women and women fighting back, art collectives and art activism – with some thoughts on media archives. The program looks at some of the amazing media work created at the Woman’s Building and the LAWVC, usually on video, much of it not seen in twenty years or more, by many of the leading artists of the era. Featured artists include: The L.A. Women’s Video Center collective, Cheri Gaulke, Starr Goode, Suzanne Lacy, Leslie Labowitz-Starus, Susan Mogul, Sheila Ruth, Jane Thurmond, and more. The LAWVC was cofounded at the Woman’s Building: A Public Center for Women’s Culture by Nancy Angelo, Candace Compton, and Annette Hunt in 1976 and joined by Jerri Allyn in 1977.

This screening is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Doin’ It in Public: Feminism and Art at the Woman’s Building on view at Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design October 1, 2011-January 28, 2012. Dr. Alexandra Juhasz, Professor of Media Studies at Pitzer College, mined the Woman’s Building video archives housed at the Getty during the research phase of Pacific Standard Time. Her essay, A Process Archive: The Grand Circularity of Woman’s Building Video, can be found in the Doin’ It in Public catalog. Jerri Allyn is an artist and educator who was instrumental inn the early years of the LAWVC. Her Debating Through the Arts performance was recently presented at LACE as part of Pacific Standard Time.

See http://www.otis.edu/public_programs/ben_maltz_gallery/womansbuilding.html and http://www.womansbuilding.org for more on the Woman’s Building and the exhibition.

In person: Jerri Allyn, Alexandra Juhasz, Susan Mogul, Cheri Gaulke, Sue Maberry, Kathleen Forrest, Suzanne Lacy, Leslie Labowitz-Starus (schedules permitting).

Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945-1980 will feature over 24 shows from October 2011 through May 2012. Alternative Projections is Filmforum’s exploration of the community of filmmakers, artists, curators and programmers who contributed to the creation and presentation of experimental film and video in Southern California in the postwar era. Film series curated by Adam Hyman and Mark Toscano, with additional contributions by guest curators and is presented in conjunction with the support of the Getty initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980.

– Cheri Gaulke

Collect art by Cheri Gaulke and support an exhibition!

in Exhibitions / News  by Cheri Gaulke

Contemporary Editions is a fundraising project for Breaking in Two: Provocative Images of Motherhood. Contemporary Editions are limited edition prints and sculpture created as a unique way for collectors to advocate the value of women artists, mothers and artist mothers. On the occasion of this exhibition, these editions will be offered for a tax-deductible purchase of $350 each. To order my print and see other offerings go to http://breakingintwo.wordpress.com/.

I contributed a limited edition print to this project and I’m really happy with how it looks. The colors are rich and it’s on gorgeous rag paper. The image is from a video project in which I had men and women in red high heels traipsing through natural environments such as streams, sand, dry brush, lava fields, and geo-thermal sites. This particular image was shot in Death Valley at Devil’s Golf Course.

Breaking in Two: Provocative Visions of Motherhood will feature a multi-cultural group of four generations, nationally and internationally recognized artist-mothers selected to represent the multi-faceted and changing realities of motherhood. The exhibition explores the intimate experience of the artist as mother, and the evolving image and place of the mother, which underwent huge transformations during the Women’s Movement of the late ’60s and ’70s. The exhibition curated by Bruria Finkel will be featured in a documentary by Sabine Sighicelli.

The participating artists include: Kim Abeles, Lita Albuquerque, Eleanor Antin, Michele Asselin, Jo Ann Callis, Joyce Dallal, Bruria Finkel, Magaret Garcia, Cheri Gaulke, Tierney Gearon, Judithe Hernandez, Channa Horwitz, Katherine Jacobi, Mary Kelly, Margaret Lazzari, Andrea Liss, M.A.M.A., Kim McCarty, Mary Linda Moss, Mother Art, Sandra Mueller, Pearls of Wisdom: End the Violence, Renee Petropoulos, Astrid Preston, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Sola Agustsson Saar, Lezley Saar, Reva Santo, Sylvia Sher, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Elena Mary Siff, Doni Silver Simons, Linda Vallejo, June Wayne, Ruth Weisberg, Kim Yasuda and Shuang Zhang.

Breaking in Two is part of Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980, a series of exhibitions initiated by the Getty that tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene. This exhibition will take place February 11 – April 14, 2012 at Arena 1 Gallery, 3026 Airport Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90405. Stay tuned for more info about this show as the date gets closer.

 

The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art

in Artists' Books / News  by Cheri Gaulke

I am pleased to announce the publication of a new book that includes work by Sue Maberry and me — The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art edited by Myrel Chernick and Jennie Klein (May 2011) from Demeter Press.

This important new collection has seven sections examining multiple aspects of mothering in contemporary art: History, Criticism, Theory, Artists’ Writings, Text/Image work, Interviews, and Visual Art. This stunning book includes full colour photographs and contributions from Mary Kelly, Susan Suleiman, Mignon Nixon, Jane Gallop, Margaret Morgan, Andrea Liss, Aura Rosenberg, Barbara T. Smith, Sherry Millner, Ellen McMahon, Renée Cox, Gail Rebhan, Marion Wilson, Judy Glantzman, Denise Ferris, Youngbok Hong, Patricia Cué, Monica Mayer, Cheri Gaulke, and more. Here’s what some scholars have to say about this book:

“The M Word puts the most hallowed and fraught life relationship of all into the center of visual culture. Working through feminist ambivalence about motherhood, this
collection offers a crucial corrective to the dearth of discussions about life choices and living tensions for creative women in art and art discourse. With a range of key feminist artists, art historians, and theorists addressing topics from Mexican feminist art collectives to the Holocaust and mothering to queer mothering, this book presents a range of rigorous thinking in textual and visual form. In The M Word, maternity, as a state, an ideology, an “image,” becomes the perfect pivot through which to examine women imagining ourselves into the sometimes incompatible roles of caring, care-taking, thinking, and making.”
—Amelia Jones, Grierson Chair in Visual Culture, Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University

“The M Word is a welcome addition to the fields of both maternal and art historical studies. In their strong introduction, Myrel Chernick and Jennie Klein provide a smart
historical grounding for the intersections of mothering and visual art. The union of scholarly and narrative voices and the range of visual material included offer a compelling framework for this volume devoted to a significant and (always) timely topic.”
—Rachel Epp Buller, editor of Reconciling Art and Mothering

“The central importance of this title lies in the richness of the work collected together, and in particular in its creation of a political archive of feminist artwork that engages with the maternal. It will be a key book in the area of feminist art theory. The wonderful interview with Mary Kelly is an important piece of art historical documentation in
itself.”
– Imogen Tyler, Senior Lecturer and Leverhulme Research Fellow, Sociology Department, Lancaster University

Consider ordering this book for your personal or institutional library. Let’s get some more images and writing about mothers in art into the art historical record! Here’s a link to the order form. http://www.demeterpress.org/mword.html

Cheri Gaulke on the Getty Blog…

in Exhibitions / News  by Cheri Gaulke

http://www.pacificstandardtime.org/blog/?tag=cheri-gaulke

Check out the article on the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time blog about the exhibition at LACE and my installation Peep Totter Fly.

The History of Performance Art at LACE: Los Angeles Goes Live by on October 11, 2011

“Also appearing in the front room is Cheri Gaulke’s Peep Totter Fly, a wall spotted with red high-heeled stilettos for men and women (sizes 5-16). Guests can check out a pair and wear them as they walk through the exhibit, and in essence, transform themself into a featured performer.”