Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
C13831W1_C13831W1 1/31/13 12:31 PM Page 1 WOMEN’S CAUCUS FOR ART Honor Awards For Lifetime Achievement In The Visual Arts Tina Dunkley Artis Lane Susana Torruella Leval Joan Semmel C13831W1_C13831W1 1/31/13 12:31 PM Page 2 C13831W1_C13831W1 1/31/13 12:31 PM Page 3 Thursday, February 14th New York, NY Introduction Priscilla H. Otani WCA National Board President, 2012–14 Presentation of Lifetime Achievement Awards Tina Dunkley Essay by Jerry Cullum. Presentation by Brenda Thompson. Artis Lane Essay and Presentation by Jarvis DuBois. Susana Torruella Leval Essay by Anne Swartz. Presentation by Susan Del Valle. Joan Semmel Essay by Gail Levin. Presentation by Joan Marter. Presentation of President’s Art & Activism Award Leanne Stella Presentation by Priscilla H. Otani. C13831W1_C13831W1 1/31/13 12:31 PM Page 4 LTA Awards—Foreword and Acknowledgments In 2013, we celebrate the achievements of four highly at El Museo del Barrio and soon to be director of the Sugar creative individuals: Tina Dunkley, director of the Clark Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling in Harlem, will Atlanta University Art Galleries; sculptor Artis Lane; introduce Leval at the ceremony. Jerry Cullum, freelance Susana T. Leval, Director Emerita of El Museo del Barrio; curator and critic, who for many years served in various and painter Joan Semmel. Each woman has made a unique editorial positions at Art Papers, has written an engaging contribution to the arts in America. Through sustained and essay about Dunkley’s work, and Brenda Thompson, insightful curatorial practice, two of this year’s honorees collector of African American art of the diaspora, will have brought national attention to the significant present her at the awards ceremony. accomplishments of African American, Puerto Rican, Latino, and Latin American artists. Likewise, Lane’s vivid In addition, we thank many volunteers for their tireless and engaging portraits at the Smithsonian’s Portrait work in making the honor awards a reality. My special Gallery and the U.S. Capitol have memorialized the thanks go to Priscilla Otani for her sound advice as WCA milestones of civil rights leaders like Rosa Parks. Semmel’s president and her steady support of the selection masterful figurative paintings, often focused on erotic committee. My deepest gratitude goes to Sandra Mueller themes, have re-conceived the loaded stakes so long who serves on the national board for her care in editing the associated with male representations of the female body. catalogue. We thank Karin Luner, Director of Operations, for her artful design and production of the catalogue and This year, we would like to thank seven equally remarkable for taking care of a myriad of other details. We are indeb ted individuals for their contributions to the awards catalogue to the many members of the National WCA who have so and ceremony. Curator and arts consultant Jarvis DuBois generously supported the awards for the past thirty years. has provided a sensitive essay about Lane’s sculpture and I also would like to acknowledge the meaning ful work of will present her at the ceremony. Art historian, biographer, the entire Selection Committee. curator, and distinguished professor, Gail Levin has offered an insightful portrait of Semmel for the catalogue. Semmel Finally but not least, I thank everyone who has financially will be presented at the awards ceremony by Joan Marter, contributed to this year’s ceremony and catalogue. Your Board of Governors Professor at Rutgers University and support is vital to the WCA mission to recognize the past recipient of a WCA Lifetime Achievement Award. contribution of women in the arts! Anne Swartz, art historian at Savannah College of Art and Design and past chair of the WCA Honor Awards Selection Susan M. King Committee, has written a cogent essay on the work of Honor Awards Chair, WCA Leval. Susan Del Valle, former director of External Affairs C13831W1_C13831W1 1/31/13 12:31 PM Page 5 Building Our Community Of Women In The Arts Welcome to the Women’s Caucus for Art’s 34th Lifetime Achievement Awards. I am pleased to continue our singular tradition of honoring women in the arts. By presenting the Lifetime Achievement Awards to Tina Dunkley, Artis Lane, Susana T. Leval, and Joan Semmel, we honor their illustrious professional careers in the arts. By selecting Leanne Stella for the President’s Art & Activism Award, we salute the next generation of women leaders in the arts. Perpetuating the contributions of women in the arts is the focus of our new Sylvia Sleigh Legacy Campaign and Initiative. Started in late 2011 and chaired by Janice Nesser-Chu, this initiative builds on the Lifetime Achievement Awards and advocates for the documentation and preservation of women’s art, scholarship and writings. The goals of the Legacy Initiative are: • Educating women on the importance of their legacy and cataloging and archiving their work and papers. • Facilitating the placement of women’s art in museums and permanent collections. • Publishing articles, essays, and catalogs on women artists. • Continuing to cultivate and grow current WCA programs that focus on legacy. • Partnering with and supporting other organizations that are working toward the same goals and mission of WCA. • Procuring funding to meet these goals through development of WCA programs on fiscal receivership, sponsorship and planned giving. As a nonprofit membership organization, WCA offers a welcoming community for women in the arts. This year’s Building Community Conference brings together the awards, exhibitions, Chelsea art tours, panels at CAA, networking opportunities with arts luminaries, and most importantly, time to share memorable experiences with extraordinary women from across the country. As a Japanese immigrant, I am proud to be the leader of this multifaceted, uniquely American organization. Priscilla H. Otani WCA National Board President 2012–14 3 C13831W1_C13831W1 1/31/13 12:31 PM Page 6 Tina Dunkley We honor you, Tina Dunkley, for your far-reaching commitment to the art and experience of the African Diaspora. Photo by Sheila Pree Bright. By Jerry Cullum Tina M. Dunkley’s career has embraced the art and experience of the African Diaspora from perspectives that range from the academic to the autobiographical. Born in New York of a Trinidadian mother and Jamaican father, Dunkley studied dance with the Dunham School, graduated from the High School of Music and Art and received a B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts. C13831W1_C13831W1 1/31/13 12:31 PM Page 7 Having moved to Atlanta because of its growing reputation as a mecca for African American creatives, she pursued an M.A. in African American Studies at Atlanta University. In 1984, her residency as a Faculty Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American Art involved her in extensive research for the national touring exhibition and catalogue Sharing Traditions: Five Black Artists in 19th Century America. Dunkley served as gallery director at Georgia State University from 1988 to 1994, where her development of a culturally diverse program included exhibitions by artists from Robert Colescott to Masami Teraoka and Luis Cruz Azaceta. In 1994, she became director of the Clark Atlanta University Art Galleries, where she raised 2.1 million dollars to rehouse the university’s distin guished permanent collection. While there, she began a program of bringing the collection to national and international attention that culminated in the 2012 publication of her definitive catalogue In the Eye of the Muses. Prior publications by Dunkley rela ted to the collection included an essay, To Conserve a Le gacy: American Art from Historically Black Col leges and Universities, and the collection brochure From Rearguard to Vanguard. From 1994 to 1996, she was program manager for African American Culture: An American Experience, a multidisciplinary program of the Cultural Olympiad of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games that included two fine art exhibitions and activities ranging from theater performances to jump-rope demonstrations. Dunkley also co-curated Art in Atlanta, an exhibition by the grassroots organization Artists in Residence International that traveled throughout the Amerika Haus system in Germany during 1996. Dunkley working on The Merikin Series: Who was Uncle Boocoosoo? Wax-resist and mixed media on canvas, 84 x 62 inches, 2012. Dunkley’s ongoing interaction with African Diaspora Photo courtesy of the artist. 5 C13831W1_C13831W1 1/31/13 12:31 PM Page 8 cultures in Brazil began with a 1991–1993 Kellogg Fellowship in International Development and continued with a 2001 travel grant from Georgia-Pernambuco Partners of the Americas. These experiences found their way into Dunkley’s own artworks, as in the 2005 exhibition at Atlanta’s Hammonds House Galleries which included works on Afro-Brazilian history and culturally freighted aspects of her own family’s identity. Dunkley’s exhibition record as a visual artist, combined with her career as curator and scholar, had gained her in 1997 a Governor’s Award for Women in the Visual Arts. Dunkley’s interaction and research into African Diaspora communities in South America and the Caribbean, from the Maroons of Jamaica to the Quilambolas of Brazil, has recently led to the discovery of her own ancestral heritage in the Merikins of Trinidad, who escaped slavery in the American South during the War of 1812 by joining the British military. In addition to authoring a book on the subject for middle school students, she plans to produce a body of artwork related to the Merikins and her own relationship to them. Tina Dunkley, Arktype Sustenance #4, 2004. Wax-resist painting on cotton fiber, 27 x 47 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist. C13831W1_C13831W1 1/31/13 12:31 PM Page 9 Biography Tina Dunkley is an artist, curator, and gallery director.