100 Women: Collaborations Beyond the Veil
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100 Women: Collaborations Beyond The Veil Ginny Sykes Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage and the Ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution Acknowledgements This catalogue is published in conjunction with: 100 Women: Collaborations Beyond the Veil Exhibition Curated by Elizabeth Loch Based on the original solo performance August 26th-December 1st, 2020 and outdoor exhibition Woodson Regional Public Library at Dryphoto Arte Contemporanea in Prato, Italy 9525 S Halsted Street, Chicago Illinois by Ginny Sykes Strength in Suffrage: A Live Stream Event Hosted by the Chicago Women’s History Center Featuring: Video by Ginny Sykes Poetry by Carron Little In loving memory of Teresa Mangiacapra, for being with me from the beginning. THE CHICAGO WOMEN’S History Center was honored to and ways of knowing on every level. For us, knowledge of support the most recent presentation of Ginny Sykes’ women’s past activities – women’ history – was an essential spectacular public art project 100 Women: Collaborations ingredient in developing an enlarged consciousness that made Beyond the Veil during August, 2020; the 100th anniversary possible the explosion of women’s activism during this time. It month of the passage of the U.S. Women’s Suffrage was understood that knowledge of women’s history went hand Amendment. Through working with Ginny to develop an in hand with women’s social and political activism. interpretive video for her piece, and support bringing her work to a world-wide audience through a digital broadcast Since its start in the 1970s, CWHC has participated in, and, at on Women’s Equality Day 2020, I developed a profound times, been at the forefront of, many evolutions of thought, understanding of this project’s capacity to move, inspire, subject, and method in women’s history. In the 1990s, we communicate, illuminate, astound, and transform. researched, wrote, and published an award-winning seminal book, Women Building Chicago 1790 – 1990, a Biographical The Chicago Women’s History Center (CWHC) was founded Dictionary, which contains extensive biographies of 423 in the early 1970s, during the birth of the second wave Chicago women, and, in its choice of entries, emphasizes women’s movement, to research, preserve, interpret, diversity in backgrounds, class, race, ethnicity, and sexual publish, and disseminate women’s history. At the time, we orientation. Our current project, “Documenting Women’s regarded this effort as a political act, a rebellion against a Activism and Leadership in the Chicago Area, 1945 – 2000”, patriarchal system that erased women’s experiences, work, uses oral history interviews, collection of archival documents, and digital publishing to uncover, interpret, and share As a women’s historian, I am impressed with Ginny’s project information about women’s activism—particularly the on several levels. The mere fact that she interviewed and activism of women of color during the late 20th century. photographed 100 Chicago women of various ages, ethnicities, races, and backgrounds, and documented this Because of this long-range perspective, I am particularly material in the exhaustive catalog presented here is, in itself, a aware of the relevance of Ginny’s 100 Women: notable accomplishment, and a significant contribution to Collaborations Beyond the Veil project to our current women’s history. Beyond that, her ability to evoke both the historical moment, locally, nationally, and internationally. At a commonality and the specificity of the women photographed time when public monuments to famous men—symbols of a by posing them all in the same regal, draped dress with one racist, classist, sexist past—are being torn down in the name hand on their heart and one hand on their abdomen – the of a more enlightened and inclusive vision for society, seats of female intuition – brings a subtle sense of paradox, of Ginny’s one hundred beautiful banners honoring women’s “holding the tension of the opposites,” to the piece. It evokes collective power arrive to take their place. At a time when the the age old question at the heart of women’s history: are proper representation of history in the public arena and in women the same, or are they different? our curriculum are being questioned on every level, 100 Women: Collaborations Beyond the Veil steps in with quiet The form of Ginny’s piece is also remarkable. She has printed grace to reveal alternative possibilities. the full-length photos of each woman on translucent fabric, creating a series of banners that, when hung, gently approaching a crisis point, and our most precious democratic undulate. values are threatened, the power, beauty, dignity, intimacy, and passion expressed by 100 Women: Collaborations They are flexible and porous enough to let light through, but Beyond the Veil is certain to be experienced as a welcome at the same time, they are strong and resilient, reflecting intervention wherever it is displayed. attributes of the subjects they portray. This light-filled quality of the banners stands in striking contrast to more traditional I am happy to have been involved in this project during its masculine monuments crafted out of marble or stone. The emergence in Chicago. I hope that it will receive the generous form of the banners themselves are a reference to the support it deserves in order to be seen and appreciated by an original women suffragists who made powerful use of audience world-wide. banners bearing hand stitched slogans such as: "Mr. President: How Long Must Women Wait for Liberty" and — Mary Ann Johnson "More Ballots, Less Bullets." President, Chicago Women’s History Center Today, we are experiencing a roll back of women’s rights on a national and international level. At a time when women’s bodies are under assault, when reproductive rights and justice are under siege, when the natural world is MY ADMIRATION FOR Ginny Sykes, artist, friend, and meaningful, beautiful, and thoughtful contribution to this supporter, goes far back to 1994 when she exhibited her work important cause. in ‘Symbolic Visions’ together with Beatriz Ledesma, at Woman Made Gallery’s first Chicago location. — Beate Minkovski Co-Founding Director, Woman Made Gallery Since those early days, she has been actively producing and exhibiting her work, served as a juror in 1999 and 2006, had a solo show in 2008, and curated art entries for the ‘Body & Brain’ group exhibition in 2013. Ginny served on WMG’s board of directors from 2012 through 2017 and has advised the organization on a variety of important topics. I am truly honored and excited to share Ginny’s most recent artistic project, ‘100 Women: Collaborations Beyond the Veil’; a relevant and important exhibition to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage. It is long overdue to empower and celebrate women in all public places, and I am so grateful to Ginny for her GINNY SYKES’ PROJECT 100 Women: Collaborations the self need each other … The self must have the body.”1 Beyond the Veil is a powerful addition to the feminist art Sykes also believes that the body contributes knowledge to tradition of image reclamation, and art making to advance the self. Hence the pose she has chosen for her subjects; social change. With the creation of 100 Women, Sykes has one hand on the chest and one on the abdomen, signalling replaced the pervasive marble tributes to patriarchy and to us a reminder that the body holds great wells of elemental racism with monumental images exalting women’s grace and insight and intuition. power, and illustrating the joining of identity and intellect with gut and heart. Many previous wave feminist artists and contemporary makers such as Hannah Wilke, Lynda Benglis, Lorna In 1972, the artist Eleanor Antin was invited to show Simpson, Valie Export, Mickalene Thomas, Cindy Sherman, sculpture in the Whitney Annual. She exhibited her now Wangechi Mutu, and many more, have explored the disparity iconic conceptual classical sculpture CARVING: A Traditional between the imposed external portrayals of women and the Sculpture. Antin recorded, in 148 black and white truer internal self-depictions. Addressing the simplified gaze photographs, the “carving” of her body into a classical that characterizes women subjects as monotone, Sykes sees sculpture by dieting for a month. As with Ginny Sykes, Antin her subjects as multi-faceted individuals. Rejecting the “male reclaimed the classical sculptural form to upend and gaze” that objectifies women, Sykes has given agency to her repurpose it. Referring to her 2017 piece Time’s Arrow, an subjects. Although the one hundred women assumed a update of Carving 45 years later, Antin said, “The body and prescribed pose, each participant was able to project their individual “seats of knowledge”, dignity, and power. The results are stunning portraits of optimism, fortitude, innocence, pride, and solemnity. Some women engaged the camera straight on, and others gaze off, perhaps to a better future. — Connie Tell Chair, National Committee of The Feminist Art Project Former Director, Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities, Rutgers University 1 Eleanor Antin video interview Eleanor Antin: Time's Arrow, LACMA, 2019 Introduction: These same women who brought this project to fruition, and It brings me immense joy to share this project with you. Such to whom I am so grateful, also made an offering. When they as life, 100 Women: Collaborations Beyond the Veil has stood for their photo and spoke out their story, they offered taken on many shapes since her conception. Through live community. In doing so, they ensured that when future performances in fabric, video and audio streams, and, women hear, see, read, or experience this journey, they can ultimately, storytelling through text; the core of our message know that they are not alone. and the women in these pages hold as true and as relevant as the very first time.