Women in the City Micol Hebron Chapman University, [email protected]

Women in the City Micol Hebron Chapman University, Hebron@Chapman.Edu

Chapman University Chapman University Digital Commons

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1-2008 Women in the City Micol Hebron Chapman University, [email protected]

Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/art_articles Part of the Art and Design Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons

Recommended Citation Hebron, Micol. “Women in the City”.Flash Art, 41, pp 90, January-February, 2008. Print.

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Comments This article was originally published in Flash Art International, volume 41, in January-February 2008.

This article is available at Chapman University Digital Commons: http://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/art_articles/45 group shows Women in the City S t\:'-: F RA:'-.CISCO in over 50 locations in the Los ments on um screens throughout Museum (which the Guerrilla Angeles region. Nobody walks in the city, presenting images of Girls have been quick to critique LA, but "Women in the City" desirable lu xury items and phrases for its disproportionate holdings of encourages the ear-flaneurs of Los that critique the politics of work by male artists). The four Angeles to put down their cell commodity culture. L{)uisc artists in "Women in the City," phones and lattcs and look for the Lawler's A movie will be shown renowned for their ground billboards, posters, LED screens without the pictures (1979) was re breaking exploration of gender and movie marquis that host the screened in it's original location stereotypes, the power of works in this eJ~;hibition. (the Aero Theater in Santa language, and appropriating the ''Truisms" (1977-79) by Jenny Monica) on Valentine's day. techniques of advertising and Holzer ("Ambivalence can min Perfectly suited for Los Angeles, a cinema, take back the streets of LA your life'') scroll acros~ a city of aspiring starlets, in which a~ they ferociously revoke and Zipscrecn above a massive GAP Lawler's piece denies the spec relllro the gaze. The works in the srore. Holzer's "Survival Series" tator's gaze by screening The ~how reinfuse the local landscape ( 1983-l:!S) resurfaces as stickers Mi.ifits sans any visuals (including with a aitical voice that is an anti ("It is embarrassing to be caught Murilyn·~ lovely face), presening dote to the innocuous and ubiqui and k i lied for stupid reasons") in only the audio. Birdcalls ( 1972- tous pop culture images that cease Spanish and English, inserted into 81 ), another audio piece by lessly promote consumption and a local weekly culture magazine, Lawler, plays in a local botanical beauty. and her "Inflammatory Essays" garden. embedded in the utopian - Micol HBI>ron ( 1979-82), also bilingual, are fluo notions of cultivated nature within rescent posters that are plastered the city. For this piece she sings on constmction site walls, in the names of famous male artists. between concert posters and graf The siting of Los Angeles bas long In February Emi Fontana's Los fiti. "Untitled Film Stills" (1977- been problematic. In a city rife Angeles-based enterprise, West of 1980) by Cindy Sherman appear with ~imulacra, the sites with most Rome, launched its inaugural on Hollywood billboards like potency often exist on television or From top : Cindy Sherman. Untitled, project "Women in the City," fashion or movie ads, but are in movies. But LA has also been 1980/2008. Installation view. Cour featuring I 0 site-specific works by disconcertingly devoid of any text the very real site of Womanhouse tesy West of Rome , Los Angeles. Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, or slogan to help ihc viewer and a significant women's activist Photo: Fredrik Nilsen; Jenny Holzer. Sex dilferences are here to stay, Louise Lawler and Jenny Holzer. contextualize them. Kruger's movement in the '70s. More 2008. Installation view. Courtesy of Like a subversive, viral ad video Plenty (2008) plays in recently, LA is also the home of West of Rome inc.. Los Angeles. campaign these works are situated sequence with actual advertise- the new Broad Contemporary Art Photo: Fredrik Nilsen.