Cheri Gaulke

A Screening of the Film, Preacher’s Sons

in News / Talks/Panels  by Cheri Gaulke

I am honored to be introducing this documentary film by my friends Mark Nealey and C Reed at a special screening of “Preacher’s Sons.”

“Preacher’s Sons” is a provocative chronicle of five troubled boys; the two men who adopt them; and the four cities that alternately accept them (Los Angeles), revile them (Grand Rapids), exclude them (Reno), and lionize them (San Francisco). Join the fledgling Stewart family on their five-year, emotionally charged odyssey through the American heartland. Marvel, as they meet racism and homophobia with faith and irreverent humor. Observe five all-but-lost boys becoming a true band of brothers. And find out what really happens behind the minister’s closed doors, in this intimate, moving, and humorous portrait.

The preacher is the Rev. Greg Stewart, who started this journey as our minister of religious education at Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church, where I am a member. The filmmakers, Mark and C, followed Greg and his family over a 5 year period. Tragically, shortly after completing the film, Mark was diagnosed with cancer and passed away a couple weeks ago. This is the first public screening of the film and it is a benefit for the family’s medical expenses. It is exciting too that the film’s subjects, Greg, Stillman and their 5 boys, will be coming down from San Francisco for the screening. I encourage you not to miss this wonderful opportunity to see this special film. I hope you to see you there.

Thursday, April 3, 7 pm, $10 suggested donation

Laemmle One Colorado, 42 Miller Alley, Pasadena, CA 91103

Advance tickets available online with no additional fees at http://www.laemmle.com/viewtheatre.php?date=04032008&thid=9

Here’s a link to the film’s website: http://www.preacherssons.com/

Making It Together: Women’s Collaborative Art + Community opens at Bronx Museum

in Exhibitions / Performance / Video  by Cheri Gaulke

I am excited to announce my participation in this exhibition in New York. The work I am showing includes documentation from two collaborative groups I co-founded, Feminist Art Workers (1976-81) and Sisters Of Survival (1981-85). With the WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution exhibition now in New York (at PS1), it is important to remember that collaboration was also a significant aspect of the feminist art movement. It was in southern California where this work was especially innovated. I am proud to be a part of that history and am delighted that it is beginning to be recognized in this exhibition. For the show, I edited two videos that document FAW and SOS. It was exciting to get together with my collaborators from times past and dig through our archives, select and scan photos, write narration about the work, and even re-stage some performance imagery. Working together was like old times but better. We’ve all mellowed and, with age and experience, know each other and ourselves so well that we could fall into a productive groove. It was lots of work but I’m really proud of the results. We may even post the two videos on youtube sometime soon. I’d like to especially acknowledge Laurel Klick (my partner in editing the FAW video) and Jerri Allyn, Anne Gauldin and Sue Maberry (my partners in producing the SOS video).

Making It Together:
Women’s Collaborative Art + Community

Making It Together explores an important chapter in recent history when women artists, inspired by the 1970s Feminist Movement, worked collectively in new ways to engage communities and address social issues.

Guest curator: Carey Lovelace

The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY 10456
March 2 – August 4, 2008

Go to the museum website and see a picture of me in my red nun’s habit as anti-nuclear performance art group, Sisters Of Survival, perform our Public Action in Covent Garden, London, in 1983.

L.A. River Project screening

in Talks/Panels / Teaching / Video  by Cheri Gaulke

Tonight, Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008, the L.A. River Project video (12 min) that Susan Boyle and I did with students at Wilson High will be screened at the Echo Park Film Center at 8 pm. It’s free. Come check it out if you can. Our video will be followed by other short films by local kids about the LA River.

The Echo Park Film Center is located at 1200 N. Alvarado Street (@ Sunset Blvd), Los Angeles, CA 90026. Park on the street or in the adjacent library lot. Here’s a link to their website. http://www.echoparkfilmcenter.org

Work from 1977 at the Getty

in Exhibitions / Video  by Cheri Gaulke

There has been a recent interest in work from the 1970s, a decade in which I came of age as an artist. I have work from this era in an exhibition entitled Evidence of Movement, currently at the Getty Research Institute through October 7, 2007. The exhibition surveys the variety of ways that artists in the 20th century have documented and represented performance-based art using nearly every medium imaginable—from photographs, films, video, and audio recordings, to notes, drawings, scores, books, and objects.

My work is included in Close Radio, which was a weekly series of experimental radio broadcasts on Los Angeles station KPFK from 1976 to 1979. I was living in Old Town Pasadena at the time when the area was occupied by artists and winos (that was before the term homeless even existed). It was long before The Gap and Tiffanys moved into the area. We had tons of beautiful skylit studio space and paid pennies for it (my rent was $35). The work we were doing was simple and conceptual. I was exploring the subject of women’s feet and shoes as a metaphor for women’s mobility (or lack thereof) in society, researching the theme through fashion, cultural histories, personal narratives and fairy tales. For Close Radio, I read aloud the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, The Red Shoes,while dancing in red high heeled shoes. By the end I nearly collapsed in exhaustion. It was a time when performance art was often durational and always a one-time, almost ritualistic activity.

You can actually listen to the audio performance online through the Getty’s website. Here’s a link. http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/evidence_movement/index.html

Women Artists of Southern California: Then and Now

in Exhibitions / Video  by Cheri Gaulke

Dear Friends,

I will be in this exhibition which is opening this coming Sat., June 2, 6-9 pm. I will be showing two video works – one from 1977 called “Eclipse in the Western Palace” and “Sea of Time” from 1993. Maybe I’ll see you at the opening!

“Women Artists of Southern California Then and Now”
June 2 through June 30,2007

Santa Monica–Track 16 Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition “Women Artists of Southern California Then & Now,” curated by Bruria Finkel. The exhibition runs from June 2 though June 30, 2007, with an opening reception on Saturday, June 2 from 6 to 9 P.M.

Track 16 is located at Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg C-1
Santa Monica, CA 90404

In conjunction with the exhibition, readings and performances will take place on Saturday, June 16, at 7 P.M. including poet/writer Deena Metzger, musician Jami Sieber, and Eloise Klein Healy. A panel discussion will be held on the closing evening of the exhibition on Saturday, June 30, at 7 P.M. featuring artist June Wayne. The emphasis on women artists’ work is important and long overdue. This exhibition attempts to create a bridge in time. The thirty-year gap between Then (the seventies) and Now (the present) constitute many years of art creation and work by the artists in this exhibition.
The exhibition features the work of thirty-six female artists residing in Southern California who have made art since the 1970s and continue to do so. Among these artists are Lita Albuquerque, Jacki Apple, Nancy Buchanan, Mariona Barkus, Diane Buckler, Karen Carson, Barbara Carrasco, Carole Caroompas, Bernice Colman, Jacqueline Dreager, Marion Estes, Bruria Finkel, Cheri Gaulke, Gilah Yelin Hirsch, Channa Horwitz, Connie Jenkins, Ynez Johnston, Lies Kraal, Leslie Labowitz, Lili Lakich, Ann McCoy, Robin Mitchell, Luchita Mullican, Margaret Nielsen, Sheila Pinkel, Astrid Preston, Fran Raboff, Erika Rothenberg, Rachel Rosenthal, Deborah Sussman, Ruth Weisberg, Faith Wilding, June Wayne, Miriam Wosk, Harriet Zeitlin, and Connie Zehr.
The artists in this exhibition consider themselves feminists. They reflect on their experiences while expressing formal concerns and inventing languages that reveal historical and contemporary connections.
An exhibition catalogue made possible by the combined effort of both the women artists of this exhibition and friends of the arts will be available for purchase for the duration of the show. This exhibition recognizes and is part of The Feminist Art Project: a project originated at Rutgers University to focus national attention on women artists in the year 2007. For more information, please visit our website at www.track16.com.
Brief history in context: The Art and Technology exhibition at LACMA in a call to artists in 1968 did not include women artists at the final exhibition. This event precipitated many objections and stimulated women artists to create the Women Artists Council of Los Angeles. The Council did a survey of the Museum and counted the number of women artists’ work that was actually hanging on the walls at that time: they found one Dorothea Lange photograph. The Women Artists Council filed a discrimination petition with the California State Senate that was read on the Senate floor. The petition opened up a dialogue between the Women Artists Council of Los Angeles and the Board of Directors at LACMA and gave rise to the important groundbreaking exhibition, Women Artists: 1550–1950 whichwas exhibited five years later.