Amanda Cachia Pandora’s Box Dunlop Art Gallery

Laylah Ali Ghada Amer Shary Boyle Amy Cutler Chitra Ganesh Annie Pootoogook Wangechi Mutu Leesa Streifler Kara Walker Su-en Wong Pandora’s Box Curated by Amanda Cachia library and archives canada cataloguing in publication Contents Cachia, Amanda, 1978- Pandora’s Box. Essays by Amanda Cachia and Joan Borsa. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina, Sask., May 16-July 20, 2008. Includes bibliographical references.

isbn 978-1-894882-28-6 1. Women artists--Canada-- Exhibitions. 2. Women artists-- United States--Exhibitions. 3. Women in art--Exhibitions. 4. Art, Canadian-- Dunlop Art Gallery Saskatchewan--Regina--21st century Foreword Pandora’s Box --Exhibitions. 5. Art, American-- Regina Public Library 4 2311-12th Avenue May 16 – July 20, 2008 Saskatchewan--Regina--21st century Dr. Elizabeth McLuhan p.o. Box 2311 Central Gallery --Exhibitions. I. Borsa, Joan M. II. Regina, Saskatchewan Curated by Amanda Cachia Dunlop Art Gallery III. Title. Canada, S4P 3Z5 6 Introduction N6496.3.C3R44 2008 This publication originates from an tel (306) 777-6040 Joan Borsa exhibition organized by the Dunlop Art 704’.0420971074712445 fax (306) 949-7264 Gallery, a department of the Regina C2008-901152-X Public Library. Financial support [email protected] Bearing Gifts: The Myth of Pandora www.dunlopartgallery.org 12 from the Regina Public Library, the Amanda Cachia Saskatchewan Arts Board, and The for the Arts is cover Shary Boyle, Migrations, 2006. gratefully acknowledged. Projected cut-out, coloured gels. Artist Biographies From Shadow Songs collaboration 52 with Christine Fellows. Photography: Shary Boyle 54 Contributors

design Zab Design & Typography 56 List of Works

printing Welter Studio, 58 Acknowledgements water in one hand/the tricky minded presented in solo exhibitions have the beginning. I would also like to Foreword female, and fire in the other’…. sexuality touched on related issues (Leesa acknowledge Joyce Clark, Curatorial by Dr. Elizabeth McLuhan in women [is] a fearsome thing… Streifler and for Assistant for her work on this project. united by a vital liquidity with the instance). Overall, however, there has elemental world, woman is able to been a dearth of feminist content in Dr. Elizabeth McLuhan is the tap the inexhaustible reservoirs of galleries in Regina in recent years. An Director of the Dunlop Art Gallery nature’s procreative power.”1 exhibition of thirteen Saskatchewan Pandora’s Box documents women, Remembering and Telling, and celebrates the contribution of curated by the noted art historian women artists living and working in Lynne Bell from the University of Canada and the United States to Saskatchewan was presented at contemporary art making, and is a the Mackenzie Art Gallery in 1991. proclamation of the diversity of their Although a watershed exhibition for 1 Anne Carson, “Dirt and Desire: Essay on the Phenomenology of Female Pollution in Antiquity,” in Pandora’s Box is an ambitious project These artists all reference their accomplishments today. Women its time, there was no follow up in Men in the Off Hours, (Canada: Vintage, 2001), 225. 4 developed by the Dunlop Art Gallery’s diverse languages, ritual, myths, have too often been the object or subsequent exhibitions to the themes 2 Marina Warner, Monuments and Maidens: The 5 Curator, Amanda Cachia, who has cultural production, domestic and “vehicle of attributed meaning.”2 In and issues it raised. Seventeen Allegory of the Female Form, (Picador, 1987), 225. selected current work from among social customs, story-telling and light of this struggle over gendered years later, Pandora’s Box seizes the two generations of internationally values (such as African-American, implications, the current blossoming torch and highlights the contribution influential women artists: Laylah Ali, Egyptian, Inuit, Indian, Euro-North- of art produced by women about of women’s art in North America Ghada Amer, Shary Boyle, Amy Cutler, American, and Singaporean). women is exciting. The progress and through its selection of artists with Chitra Ganesh, Wangechi Mutu, Many of the works in Pandora’s evolution of the current generation perspectives that resonate globally. Annie Pootoogook, Leesa Streifler, Box reveal an inescapable sense of acknowledges the legacy of feminist I would like to thank the Kara Walker and Su-en Wong. immediacy and a fierce sexuality. art practice in North America and participating artists and to commend Artists in Pandora’s Box draw on Anne Carson’s observations on beyond: a legacy which has informed the curatorial vision and tenacity diverse cultural traditions to both classical notions of female wildness new fields of feminist art practice. of purpose of Amanda Cachia, the re-invent and re-invest traditional are pertinent here in the archaic This is the first examination of Curator. The Dunlop expresses myths and fairytales with new poetry of Archilochas “[who] contemporary women’s art and its gratitude to Joan Borsa for her meanings in dynamic and often summarizes the female threat in two feminist issues at the Dunlop Art introduction to this catalogue, and disturbing images/configurations. iambic verses: ‘She came carrying Gallery, although a number of artists her support for the project from We all return to memories and dreams like this, again and formative (Western) feminist art projects such as unlike the ideological and stylistic cohesiveness of other Introduction again; the story we tell of our own life is reshaped around Chicago’s Dinner Party, Mary Kelly’s Post-Partum influential art movements of the postwar period (Abstract by Joan Borsa them. But the point doesn’t lie there, back in the past, back Document, the Guerrilla Girls’ public actions and since Expressionism, Minimalism or Fluxus) Feminist Art’s in the lost time when they happened; the only point lies in Griselda Pollock and Rozika Parker’s book Old Mistresses: impact is rooted in “an ideology of shifting criteria,” which interpretation. Women, Art and Ideology insisted on claiming a space has not only “sustained an unprecedented degree of in a hierarchical and male-dominated art world – but internal critique” but “contained wildly divergent political — carolyn steedman, Landscapes 3 for a Good Woman, 1986 struggles for the right to be recognized as agents and ideologies and practices.” Similarly in a recent article art subjects of history have often been met with resistance critic Lucy Lippard discusses the difficulty of pin-pointing and growing pains. One of the significant lessons of the characteristics and achievements of such a diversified this period of almost 40 years of feminist theorizing, and constantly evolving movement as feminist art, a project, art making and activism is that there is a great deal which she suggests “like was not based on Pandora’s Box is a timely exploration of the passions, of structural difference among us. How to represent style but on content.”4 innovations and diversity that characterize feminist art our differences as well as our shared experiences In my conversations with Amanda Cachia, curator of today. It projects forward, it scans the past, the present as gendered and socially constructed subjects has Pandora’s Box, and as I asked her about her relationship 6 and our differences, and it points to new layers of creative remained a central preoccupation (and a strength) of to feminism and the impetus behind this project it became 7 and critical acumen. Since the 1970s women artists, contemporary feminist practice and scholarship. apparent that many of the artists selected for this curators, critics and art historians have actively engaged Indeed, in the recent flourishing of notable feminist exhibition (and perhaps the curator herself) do not readily with and contributed to debates on representation, art exhibitions, substantial exhibition catalogues and identify their practice as feminist. In some of the reviews authorship, desire, power relations and identity politics. comprehensive feminist art anthologies (particularly in and articles surrounding the recent resurgence of interest A great deal of this work has focused on strategies of the United States, but also in parts of Britain and Europe)2 in feminist art production a similar reluctance is portrayed. representing the body and the heterogeneity of women’s a recurring theme is the concept of difference – differences How are we to interpret this skepticism within the context cultural and social experience – an exploration that has among women, particularly across generational, national of what appears to be feminist art’s grand entrance on moved from producing “images” of the body to creating and cultural divides; but, just as relevant, differences in a coveted art world stage? Is this a re-examination of a more diversified representations of embodied subjectivity. the social conditions under which women produce art, in movement, confirmation of a new wave, or the interna- Other components of this work have emphasized the need the approaches, mediums and materials which are utilized, lization of “post-feminist” press? Guerrilla Girl Kollwitz to analyze, deconstruct and intervene in the histories of art, and in the political, cultural and critical perspectives which addressed the latter possibility commenting on why the and have affected change in the institutions, public spaces, inform feminist work. For example, in curator Cornelia term ‘feminist’ might cause adverse reactions: “The media and political processes that make up public culture.1 Much Butler’s introductory essay for the 2007 exhibition w a c k ! to talk about how nobody wants to be identified with has been accomplished since second-wave feminism and Art and the Feminist Revolution, Butler proposes that being a feminist.” “We have been working all these years to rehabilitate the word, because women and men They will be visited by critics who will yawn and stare at project other possibilities as they re-order, re-imagine, consumption, but more importantly they are marked by a who believe in the tenets of feminism don’t want to be the floor if they talk about feminism or identity. They will and re-symbolize their relationship to the feminine sphere. public display of intensely intimate and visceral knowledge. associated with a term that has been demonized.”4 be counseled by ‘sensitive’ men to be ‘post-identitarian’ and Rather than the fear of “the difference” that women’s I am reminded of Nancy Miller’s comment that the writing Perhaps some of the anxiety associated with the term ‘antiessentialist.’ They will sit through painful group crits in bodies have come to represent, the work in this exhibition (speaking) subject persists in its need “to find a subject to is symptomatic of an image problem tied to the backlash which everyone will avoid discussing feminism – over and yields empowering alternative images, projections and love.”9 Interestingly, in this instance the love object appears against feminism; but it might also be indicative of a over, until they are disciplined through peer pressure into symbolic realms – shifting attention to the positive and to be one’s own repressed femininity – a space which more generational divide (third wave feminists often take the rejecting any feminist identification.6 pleasurable forces looming within Pandora’s mythic, social than a century ago at the threshold of high modernism achievements of previous feminisms for granted). That is, Despite the many achievements of forty years of and sexual “box.” As Cachia outlines in her essay, “In the Rimbaud described as “the unknown.” “She will come on a superficial level, one could get the (too complacent) feminist art activity and the remarkable exhibitions, context of this exhibition, Pandora is not a demonized upon strange, unfathomable, repellent, delightful things. impression that institutional and societal change has panels and publications of recent years, there are many figure, but like the artwork, comes to us bearing gifts.”7 We will take them. We shall comprehend them.” 10 Indeed, occurred, irrevocably. It could also be a reflection of the indications that women artists, curators, critics and In this interpretation of history, women start with an part of what we have come to appreciate are the unique heterogeneity which continues to characterize feminism academics remain cautious about how they name and exploration of their own bodies, desires, lives and cultural ways visual art practices “write” and “speak”in their own (a resistance to dominant definitions and a plurality of frame their practices and feminist affiliations. As many identities. They proceed from an intimate knowledge of visual lexicons – how they function as a site of theorizing feminist agendas). Clearly, discomfort with the term have suggested, when conditions of marginalization what it means to inhabit specific bodies and moments in and form of knowledge. 8 “feminist” is also indicative of a desire to set the terms of and repression have surrounded one’s relationship to history. Onto these existing representations of gendered If, in fact, the gallery is one of the safe public places 9 one’s own practice. Definitions and new directions in both dominant representational systems, it is not uncommon identity they overlay their own stories, memories and where different points of view and diverse artistic feminism and the visual arts have always been intensely for speaking subjects (artists, curators, scholars) to be dreams. In this gesture they not only cover over (or practices, cultures and audiences can productively come debated, and struggles over meaning are signs of a healthy, able to comprehend both the structure that contains defuse) the inequities, mythologies and blindspots that into contact, then this exhibition promises to generate an inclusive and evolving feminist culture. Nonetheless, having them and the inappropriateness of this codification, have plagued them, but give new meaning to Helene atmosphere where Regina and Saskatchewan audiences come through a ten year period where I also experienced while remaining “enclosed” in various enactments of Cixous’ call, nearly four decades ago, for cultural will be the recipients of a lively, rare and important conflicting responses to my relationship to feminism and this designation. inscriptions that flow from the body: exchange. Clearly this timely exhibition builds on the feminist art, I believe there is a need to be vigilant about Underneath the mediations and inscriptions which have By writing the self, woman will return to the body which energy, vision and critical frameworks of the current the reasons we may or may not identify with the F-word. been layered upon women’s bodies, women’s history and has been confiscated from her, which has been turned into revival of interest in feminist art activity. While many of As Coco Fusco, performance artist and associate professor women’s art, the work in Pandora’s Box clears a space the uncanny stranger on display.... Censor the body and the recent wave of exhibitions are large scale survey at Columbia University’s School of Visual Arts suggests, where the parodies and pleasures of women’s maneuvres, you censor breath and speech at the same time. Write format and revisit the activities since second-wave as part of their formal educational experience many art masquerades and disguises can be productively reassessed. yourself. Your body must be heard. Only then will the feminism and contemporary art practice became intimate, students discover that openly identifying with feminism is While the artists in Pandora’s Box account for the specific immense resources of the unconscious be heard. 8 Pandora’s Box carves out a unique territory which recasts perhaps not in their best interests: effects of discourses, inheritances and representations The works in this exhibition play with the gendered feminist art and the notion of difference in several important that have set “woman” in her place, they simultaneously images and codifications that are presented for public ways. Firstly, it de-emphasizes the notion of woman’s difference as rooted in “lack” and returns to investigate practitioners, but also of new approaches by more the implications of Cixous’ term joissance; an insistence senior artists. I see the ways these ten artists build on that women discover the source of their own pleasure. the work that has preceded them but, more importantly, Secondly, in conceptualizing the positive implications I see how they are interrogating, re-interpreting and taking of difference, and assembling a diverse group of artists the dialogue between art and feminism in new directions. who were born into exceedingly different geographical, Within an aesthetic language that approaches collage or political and cultural climates, the politics of location and visual intertextuality, the works carry signs of the mind’s cultural diversity resonate throughout the work included propensity to layer, sort, juxtapose, consider and process in this exhibition. Thirdly, the works in this exhibition are in the details and fragments we call memory, desire and dialogue with each other – not because they subscribe to reality. In these new arrangements or “life” studies, a type a particular stylistic or ideological template, but because of peeling apart and rebuilding seems to be at work – they mirror to each other the shedding of inhibitions something is being made out of the struggles and stories needed to touch upon the depths of female knowledge. they have accumulated. As I follow the specificity of each Fourthly, this is one of the few feminist art group artist’s cultural, racial and generational context, and 1 I refer to the influential ideas (London: Phaidon Press, 2001), 5 As quoted in Phoebe Hoban, 10 Written by Rimbaud in May 1871 10 represented by Griselda Pollock in The Feminism and Visual Culture “We’re Finally Infiltrating,” ARTnews and quoted in Simone de Beauvoir’s 11 exhibitions to surface in Canada in recent years. While absorb the meticulous gestures, wit and provocation that Vision and Difference: Feminism, Reader ed. Amelia Jones (London 106, no.2 (February, 2007): 110. Second Sex (London: Pan Books, Femininity and the Histories of Art and : Routledge, 2003), 1988), first published 1949, 723. I am certain that something major cannot be far behind, constitute their work, I find myself encouraged that a 6 See Jori Finkel, “Saying the F-word,” (London and New York: Routledge Feminism–Art–Theory: An Anthology in ARTnews 106 no. 2 (February, it is important that we recognize the leadership that feminist future will be as rigorous and innovative as Classics, 2003) and Suzanne Lacy 1968-2000 ed. Hilary Robinson 2007): 119. smaller Canadian public art galleries continue to display. anything that has already transpired. in Mapping the Terrain: New Genre (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), Radical Public Art (Seattle: Bay Press, 1995). Gestures: Feminism and Performance 7 Amanda Cachia, “Bearing Gifts: Over the past two decades the Dunlop Art Gallery has Art in North America ed. Jayne Wark The Myth of Pandora,” Pandora’s Box 2 In addition to the projects ( and Kingston: McGill (Regina: Dunlop Art Gallery, 2008) 13. played a particularly vital role in initiating ground-breaking mentioned in my text I have found Queen’s University Press, 2006) the following recent exhibition exhibitions of national and international significance. It is and of course the ongoing 8 Helene Cixous, “The Laugh of the catalogues and feminist art antholo- contributions of the international Medusa.” in Feminism-Art-Theory: gratifying to see that this tradition continues. One can gies particularly inspiring: Inside the feminist art journal n.paradoxa, An Anthology 1986-2000 ed. Hilary Visible, An Elliptical Traverse of 20th not help but notice that many of the artists included in ed. Katy Deepwell. Robinson ( Oxford: Blackwell, 2001) Pandora’s Box are justifiably attracting tremendous Joan Borsa is an Independent Curator Century Art: In, Of and From the 630. First published in English in and Associate Professor Women’s and Feminine ed. M.Catherine De Zegher 3 Cornelia Butler, “Art and Feminism: Signs 1, no.4 (1976). international critical attention. Gender Studies (Cambridge and London: mit Press, An Ideology of Shifting Criteria,” 1994), : New in WACK! Art and the Feminist 9 Nancy Miller, “Changing the And finally although I am writing this introduction Directions in Contemporary Art Revolution ed. Lisa Gabrielle Mark Subject: Authorship, Writing and the prior to seeing the exhibition, I am aware that I have ed. Maura Reilly and Linda Nochlin (Cambridge and London: mit Press, Reader,” in Feminist Studies, Critical (London and New York: Merrell and 2007) 15. Studies ed. Teresa de Lauretis already benefited from its influence – the work is not the , 2007), Art (Bloomington: Indiana Univ Press, 4 Lucy Lippard, “No Regrets,” Art in only indicative of a younger generation of feminist and Feminism ed. Helena Reckitt 1986) 109. America (June/July, 2007): 76. “…the erotic offers a well of replenishing and provocative In the context of this exhibition, Pandora is not a for women seems to elude those who subscribe to this Bearing Gifts: source to the woman who does not fear its revelation, demonised figure, but like the artwork, comes to us phallocentric notion. “The unfailing moisture and sexual nor succumb to the belief that sensation is enough.” 1 bearing gifts, as indicated by the meaning of her name.6 drive of woman, then, is part of a larger conceptual The Myth of Pandora Here, the myth of Pandora and the opening of her schema, whereby the female is assimilated to the world by Amanda Cachia “I urge each one of us to reach down into that deep place of miraculous box is a hopeful return of the repressed of raw nature and femininity insistently identified with knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing feminine. Today, a radical transformation is taking place the wild.”12 If putting the lid on female purity was the of any difference that lives there.” regarding previously entrenched assumptions about chief concern of mythological rituals, then the artists in – audre lorde 2 gender, the body, sexuality and spirituality.7 This exhibi- Pandora’s Box shift the focus from the male perspec- tion is “no longer about what is hidden inside of the box, tive in order to explore their own bodies as repositories never to be revealed, but what is metaphorically reflected of sensuality and lift the oppressive lid on the erotic. in it of the outside.”8 Like the splash of genital fluid at the The “box” has become a slang word for womb and/or Pandora’s Box offers a new twist on the myth of conclusion of Testimony by Kara Walker, there is among vagina. A woman’s box or cunt is located at her physical Pandora, the first woman in Greek mythology. Women these works, a release of pent-up desires, anxieties and core, a gravitational centre that is deeply engorged in have simultaneously been beneficiaries and victims of frustrations; a fountain of knowledge and wit springs forth. the artists’ work in this exhibition. While it has been used 12 mythological traditions. “In myth, woman’s bodies are The phrase ‘Pandora’s box’ has acquired highly erotic in derogatory ways, Ophira Edut suggests that “Cunt 13 pliant, porous, mutable. Deformation attends her. She connotations. Its opening is equated with the symbolic is a metaphor for unconditional self-love, a gentle call swells, she shrinks, she leaks, she is penetrated, she charge of surrendered virginity, as well as devaluation for women to embrace all things sacred and essentially suffers metamorphoses. The women in mythology of the sacred feminine. “Like Pandora’s famous ‘box’ … female.”13 ‘Cunt’ is a word that all women potentially share, regularly lose their form in monstrosity.”3 It comes as no woman’s sexuality was once again blamed for all men’s in resistance to its denigrations and in celebration of its surprise then, that Pandora has been described as either ills.”9 Amelia Jones notes that male philosophers from juicy possibilities. Women have too often been divided a great goddess, beautiful and innocent, responsible Nietzsche to Baudrillard have argued that seduction, from this anatomical jewel 14, by cultural practices which, for bearing gifts from the universe to humankind, or a sexuality and corporeality are connected to the threaten- as Luce Irigaray has argued, deny the ways that a woman’s mortal woman, blamed for unleashing all of the world’s ingly sexualised feminine body.10 A woman’s body, her sex, geography of pleasure is diversified, “…more multiple in evil by opening up her magical box.4 Pandora is conse- is treated in these androcentric constructions as a dual its differences, more complex, more subtle, than is imag- quently a subtle, complex and revealing symbol of the site for both the pleasure and downfall of man, conveying ined.”15 The imagery of Pandora’s Box first and foremost feminine5 and has much in common with the Christian an obvious unease with female sexuality. Wangechi seduces us. It may also offend, terrorise, delight and figure of Eve. In a similarly demonising account, it is Eve Mutu observes: “Females carry the marks, language and shock, engaging the full human experience. Viewers are who first succumbed to temptation by eating the apple nuances of their culture more than the male. Anything invited to act not only as voyeurs into the self-pleasuring in the Garden of Eden, allowing sin to enter the world. that is desired or despised is always placed on the female of these artists, but to permit the touch of the feminine body.”11 The idea that women’s sexuality might be about and imaginary to reshape their relationships with themselves, leading to curiosity, ecstasy, and transformation. the kind of lived ecological diversity that surrounds us in Ten international female artists are represented in our communities.”18 The artists’ works illuminate Pandora’s Box, including Laylah Ali from Massachussetts, these conceptual practices in Pandora’s Box. Ghada Amer, born and raised in and the south of Taken together, the artists in this exhibition support , currently living and working in New York, Shary the social, economic, and political processes for social Boyle from Toronto, Amy Cutler and Chitra Ganesh, both justice, access and opportunity that ground the feminist from Brooklyn, Kenyan-born, Brooklyn artist Wangechi movement. They share on their lives, liminal Mutu, Annie Pootoogook from Cape Dorset, Nunavut, desires, personal fictions and autobiographies, multiple born Leesa Streifler, now based in Regina, Kara cultural identities, racialisation and psychological mani- Walker from New York, born in California, and Su-en festations of longings and vexations, through various Wong, originally from Singapore, and now living and journeys. Their artwork seamlessly blends aesthetics, working in New York. Inside Pandora’s Box, viewers will emotions and feminist concerns. Nevertheless, this work encounter a phantasmagoria of myths, folktales, stereo- is collectively cautious about claiming any political stripe, types and ambiguities. The artists challenge, appropriate label or tag. Some artists express anxiety, resistance and and critique patriarchal myths, archetypes that claim soul-searching about defining themselves as feminists, 15 universality, and various fairytales, to make them a more while others reclaim the title proudly; depending on their accurate mirror of female experience across a range of age, several ignore or remain apparently unaware of the socio-historical contexts.16 The artists unpack symbolic stigma of the male gaze, creative forces unto themselves, constructions of female as vice and as burgeon, affirming and woman-centered, by any name. Viewers are invited the particularities of the experiences against which they to reflect on larger human issues within an imaginary test representational projects. Finding the ‘goddess within’ that is deeply female, exploring birth, death, parenthood, is a source of empowerment. Indian writer and theorist relationships, rites of passage, (particularly childhood Geeta Kapur coined the term ‘remythologizing,’ 17 while to womanhood), and multiple identities, through an Audre Lorde has defined ‘automythography,’ both affirming engagement with otherworldly creatures and everyday processes of creating new and often idiosyncratic environments. They offer a rich platform for the visitor symbologies that convey female erotic and psychic to this exhibition, a scrumptious witches’ brew that casts lexicons. Helene Shulman Lorenz says, “In fragments a spell of warning and wonder. The artists add diverse, of oral history, in received spiritual traditions, in symbols poignant, independent and intersubjective voices to an Laylah Ali 19 , 2006-2007 surviving from other eras, a practice of autoethnography evolving polylogue of what it means to be female. Courtesy of 303 Gallery begins to sift through sediments, recreating in discourse Pandora’s Box was inspired, in part, by Global Feminisms, an influential exhibition that opened with the Regina, Egypt, New York, Kenya or Singapore, women’s pioneering Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art struggles for expression and to flourish in meaningful lives in the Brooklyn Museum, the only exhibition space in the resonate across continents and close to home. Female United States dedicated to work by women that bears the artists in the “centre” are just as strong, intelligent and name: feminist. Curated by Maura Reilly, Global Feminisms capable as they are in the so-called “periphery”. There formed a key component of a blossoming recognition of is a bi-fold apparatus in place in Pandora’s Box; these feminist-based art in 2007. The thesis of this extraordinary artists search for solidarity as women, while validating exhibition used, as its backbone, “common differences” localised conditions of personal and political emergence. between women from various cultures, nations, religions, Pandora’s Box celebrates the current generation for its ethnicities, and sexualities.20 In her essay for the Global multifarious interpretations of ‘feminisms’ and woman- Feminisms catalogue, Reilly acknowledged that the centered potentials and imaginaries. As Maura Reilly infers, exhibition was focused on the work of younger women, perhaps the audience engaging in this generation completed since 1990, as an attempt to address present of work has the capability of producing change and and future, moving forward from the past. Further, this transformation in the world, even more so than before, 16 exhibition was crucial to the thesis of Pandora’s Box in because it has become more possible for women to that it acknowledged feminisms in the plural: there is no communicate across what Inderpal Grewal and Caren single definition of feminism; multiple constructions Kaplan have termed “scattered hegemonies.”21 of womanhood, replete with their own predicaments and situations, make up the tenants of feminist projects. Global Feminisms highlighted the differences among women and did not assume privileged cultures as a neces- Challenging Good sary referent. Audre Lorde pronounced that differences versus Evil reflecting cultures, races, ethnicities and classes are all worthy of attention and validity, in woman-centered Dualities: good and evil, heaven and hell, sin and atonement, work. The themes of Global Feminisms are reflected and right and wrong, and the tension of opposites, love-hate, recontextualised in Pandora’s Box, and are as relevant death-life, are believed to be part of human nature. to Regina as they are to other communities. Because However, Helene Cixous suggests that these binaries are contemporary art engages hybridised forms, with geo- hierarchical and through the inherent assumption of Shary Boyle political referents that are prominent across environments, superior/inferior that attaches to them, have been Untitled #2, 2007 whether the artist comes from Toronto, Cape Dorset, used to sustain male privilege. “Traditionally, the question Photography: Shary Boyle of sexual difference is treated by coupling it with the white Western Canadian life of the South: pop culture/ opposition: activity/passivity.”22 The woman is usually community, family/individual, natural world/machines.26 seen as the passive figure in these dualities. Amy Cutler’s figures are at once ubiquitous and specific, Cixous believes the stories from history are there obscure yet full of hope, ordinary and impossible. to retell differently, and in light of such alternative In order for women to achieve recognition separate re-tellings “…the future would be incalculable; the from men – outside of binary constructs – Luce Irigaray historic forces would and will change hands and developed a body of theory and writing proposing mimesis, change body – another thought which is yet unthink- masquerade, hysteria, the mirror, speculum and gestural able – will transform the functioning of all society.”23 acts as methods for negotiating new terrains of meaning. The artists in Pandora’s Box seek to engage with Mimesis involves imitation, appropriation and reproduction, and challenge hierarchical dualities, and break out of in processes deployed by the artists here to reinterpret binary oppositions altogether. Ghada Amer employs binary constructions. Hysteria unearths repressed sexual imagery, fairy tale and pornography to confound forms such as suffering or paralysis of desire. The polarised constructions, such as male versus female, masquerade is a concept of femininity as drag: behind the East versus West and the difference between fine mask is a projected lack. “The masquerade is woman’s 19 art and craft. Shary Boyle uses androgyny to blur the playing [and acting out] of the script of femininity provided lines of expectation and boundaries between human/ by man.”27 Irigaray encourages women to break down non-human, animal and plant.24 She states: “…it seems the two-dimensionality of the mirror and break through like there is no one thing, that everything has its counter. received representations of the feminine, in order to We’re all drawn to the concepts of “pair” or “team” and find a more appropriate mirror to reflect ourselves. She then we’re also repelled by it, so there’s this constant proposes the speculum as a metaphor for finding ways pushing and pulling…tensions, dualities and polarities to recognise the female soul, by demanding an imaginary occur within each individual’s psyche.”25 Wangechi Mutu’s based on the multiple, unfolding vulva, not bound to the work is a portrait of contrasts: beautiful and alluring phallus of psychoanalytic theory. She celebrates gestural female figures are also grotesque, mutilated, wild and processes that find expression in movement, crucial to sublime. Laylah Ali explodes binary categorisations of the physical ‘making and doing’ relationship a woman identity: human/alien, male/female, good/evil, black/ has with her art-making in the studio. The artists in Annie Pootoogook white, while Annie Pootoogook uncovers the structural Pandora’s Box make clever use of the devices proposed Composition (Mourning complexities emerging between the Inuit Arctic and by Irigaray, visually articulated in the themes that inform Napachie’s Death), Cape Dorset, 2003/04. Photography: Don Hall this exhibition: Libidinal Use of Media; Sexuality, Pleasure and seductive. Some of the works are bold, using silhou- and Erotica; Undoing Race and Gender Constructs; ettes or graphics, while others offer intricate portraits The Carnivalesque and the Grotesque; Surrealist and diminutive windows, where the viewer is invited to Influences, Dreams, Autobiography and Self-portraiture. come up close. Once near enough to examine the detail, viewers may experience the effects of the velvet glove or a Venus Flytrap, a sting, punch or element of surprise. Libidinal Use of Media Annie Pootoogook uses ink, pen and pencil crayon, media that is reminiscent of a child’s first contact with Dancing, cavorting, flying, floating, leaping, jumping, the world of art-making. Her series of eight drawings running, falling. Quickening heart-beat. Shortening breath. from 2001-2007 “compose” the various elements of her Exhilaration. The artists free their own and represented life together into a series that exemplifies core personal bodies through their use of media in Pandora’s Box. With experiences as an Inuit woman. Chitra Ganesh has wind-swept tendrils and out-flung limbs, Shary Boyle’s pushed her work outside the frame, literally; her goddess frozen-in-falling-flight female silhouette on the cover of has Rapunzel braids of artificial hair that flow around the 20 this catalogue gives us a stained-glass lens of colour corner of the wall. She breathes from a vaginal hookah. and metaphor, through which to enter the gallery space. Ghada’s use of lively and energetic embroidered veiling/ Liberated from convention, effervescent and sinister, this unveiling display women with their heads tossed back gestural female body illuminates the language of physical in states of ecstasy, undress or kissing that, combined and psychic experience; because the glass is stained with painting, treats the ‘traditional female’ craft of 28 Chitra Ganesh and variegated, our perspectives are multiplied. sewing as a woman’s political medium. Laylah Ali works Inside Pandora #2, 2008, The artworks represented in Pandora’s Box are an obsessively with detailed use of pencil and ink on paper, site-specific mural installation, Dunlop Art Gallery expression by a new species of artists who are having a in labour-intensive and time-consuming work, yielding Photography: Trevor Hopkin splendid love affair with the sensuous, revitalising quality hieroglyphs that present meticulous minimalist intrica- of the media they are attempting to master: a delectable cies for maximum impact. Kara Walker and Shary Boyle mix of ink on paper, collage, comics, stitched embroidery play with the rich, metaphorical associations of shadow and acrylic on canvas, coloured pencil and watercolour, and light, in ways that recall Irigaray’s conceptual tools a collaborative musical and projection performance, a for detecting non-dominating ways of looking. Boyle’s shadow puppet animation and much more. These works interdisciplinary practice of working with performance are violent, shocking, beautiful, decadent, decorative accompanied by music (Shadow Songs with Christine Fellows), is ambitious, heartfelt, honest, a sensuous play across sight and sound. Wangechi Mutu creates Sexuality, Pleasure cancerous, organic tissue, collage constructions exposing the distortions of Western fashion journals, Playboy and and Erotica motorcycle magazines. Leesa Streifler deconstructs Pornography has become a terrain that female artists formal photographic portraits, by layering an “innocent” have begun to occupy in empowered ways. With Annie girl tableau with a web of written internal psychological Sprinkle leading the crusade,29 women are claiming the thought processes using ink and markers, expressing the right to express pleasure in their own terms. Thus, they hurt, awkwardness and betrayal that characterise the rewrite the scripts of porn, removing it from its functions, messages with which baby boomers were raised. The purely for the male gaze or male titillation. Ghada Amer text mirrors back to us: “Don’t criticize her”, “How much has talked about a ‘double submission’ 30 and famously control?”, “Stop it Now” and “Dad don’t leave me”. A said “‘I don’t see it [porn] in a harsh light, in terms crown rests on top of the “sweet” child and the “hopeful” of exploitation or critique…rather I see it as something adolescent, invoking a desired if unrealised status among beautiful and warm, a source of pleasure. Feminism those she loves, or reflecting ego-based little-girl prin- can be empowered by seduction.”31 23 cess dreams. Streifler’s Self-Conscious Romantic, 2008, Sexual imagery is salient throughout this exhibition. a portrait of a woman with dark brown-rimmed glasses Viewers greet a large nude goddess figure, the protago- and an awkward smile, uses expressionistic strokes of nist of the exhibition perhaps, upon entry into the centre pink paint to suggest the amorous. This romance however, of the exhibition space. Chitra Ganesh has created this leaps out of the background, and intrudes on a face that goddess with three eyes, long braids, pert breasts, and an is bruised or stained by indecipherable brown marks. umbilical hookah connecting vagina, hand, and breath, in Through the ebullient grasp of these media, – we an intoxicating creative sweep. In two of Laylah Ali’s gain a sense of this generation of artists, their visions and untitled drawings, a woman tongue-probes another liberatory politics. They show us that there is enjoyment woman, Judith Butler’s female phallus32 reaching across and pleasure, pain and power, in the creative capacities of head-dressed and costumed armours of power and fear. Wangechi Mutu women who, by virtue of the specificities of their visions, In The Delicate Perversity of Obscene Excess, 2005 by Histology of the reveal as more mysterious than we know, the feminine Shary Boyle, a Sleeping Beauty figure astride a horse Different Classes of Uterine Tumors, 2006, dance of public and private imagination and cunning. bears a large birthday cake on her belly lit up by licking Series of 12 works flames that suggest the project of a head-first horny man Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co. mounting from behind in a surreal and twisted enchanted explores the themes of feminine cliché and erotica, yet forest. Wangechi Mutu produces a series of cartographical her paintings have often been described as entering a medical illustrations of female anatomy, juxtaposed and women’s boudoir of pleasure, with submerged undertones collaged with women’s body parts, clipped from Western of captivity and repression and the desire to lift the veil or fashion magazines, crudely forming genitalia portraits hijab. Sometimes Amer incorporates text and calligraphy that are violent and grotesque. An African slavegirl from numerous languages into her works, drawing from subverts power by killing her master and completes the Quran. The artist also creates and the necrophilist act of fellatio while he is noosed up by installation, and recently has begun to make antiwar rope and hanging from a tree in Testimony: Narrative of statements in her work. a Negress Burdened by Good Intentions, 2004 by Kara Like the feminist activist art group the Guerrilla Walker. She is consistent; She nurtures; She’s maternal; Girls, who formulate revised versions of the history of He thrives, 2007, by Leesa Streifler, displays ‘silhouette western art, Amer remaps art history in new erotic and negatives’ of a boy baby sucking and slurping the squirting provocative terms in order to capture painting as a space milk from a woman’s large nipple. This ‘menu’ of sexuality of desire for the female. She does this by appropriating 24 is evocative of Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party, 1974-79, devices from movements that have characterised the on permanent view at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for male artistic canon, using her embroidered and acrylic Feminist Art. In a collaborative project with multiple strokes in an abstract expressionistic style and alluding women contributors, the artist fashioned dinner plates to a minimalist grid through her pattern of repeating in the style of fleshy female labia, clitoris and vulvae, on embroidered motifs. In French Kiss, 2003, the emblematic a triangular-shaped dinner table, in homage to ground- profile of an embrace is rendered in rhythmical linear and breaking women the world over. This installation challenged spatial repetition across an embroidered canvas, veiled Ghada Amer French Kiss, (detail) the repression of nearly all feminine achievements, in a shower of threads and acrylic blocks. The faces are 2003 33 which obscured their histories from public memory. difficult to see at first. What appear to be paint drips are Courtesy of Deitch Projects Ghada Amer’s paintings raise questions about the actually thread ends that would normally be concealed in a position of women in the West in relation to Islamic traditional needlework,34 a rendering of the inside, outside. fundamentalism. Radical feminism’s attempts to police Su-en Wong’s paintings are dominated by multiple desire remind her, in their restrictiveness, of the nude pre-pubescent self-portraits half child-like and Islamic prohibitions of her Egyptian childhood, so the innocent, yet knowing and adult-like in their seductive pornography she freely uses becomes a rebellion. She Lolita poses, a disturbing engagement with the Asian schoolgirl stereotype and the Western voyeur.35 In Lovers Knot, 2006, nude Asian schoolgirls are juxtaposed with Undoing Race and a red jungle-gym, set up against a pink, colour-field playground. The figures and this game knot together like Gender Constructs lovers’ tongues, an allusion to the phallic, blue, slippery Laylah Ali, Wangechi Mutu and Kara Walker use recon- slide, a common childhood [sex] toy. Like Ghada Amer, textualised stereotypes to blast new meaning into race Wong’s work signals a shift in perspective that under- and gender constructs. Predecessors and peers on this mines objectification by empowering the nude female path include Faith Ringgold, Adrian Piper, Carrie Mae 36 body, particularly through performance of sexual desire. Weems, and Renee Cox from the United States, Tracey Chitra Ganesh has created an erotic retelling – in Moffatt from Australia, and Tracey Rose from South the comic-book tradition – of Hindu myths. In her Africa. Important critical thinkers including bell hooks and digital c-print series, Tales of Amnesia, she explores a Audre Lorde inform the politics behind these engagements new kind of sexuality that exceeds the confines of the with prejudice and damaging social constructions. By traditional Indian virgin and/or bride, drawing from Amar placing sexual taboos, racialised stereotypes and the 37 27 Chitra Katha comics. “The imagery [of the comics] inherent violence of oppressive sexualisations into the was so interesting because it’s so much about the public space of the art museum, they invite us to look, women being pure or noble or maternal or supportive to categorize, to turn the tables of objectification and of their husbands, or quiet or passive – all of these disturb the pathways of prejudice that condition the conventional models of femininity but then, at the same contemporary moment’s emergence out of the past. time, they dress like I Dream of Jeannie [sic], very Barbie Walker is an African American artist of high profile and with tits and ass. I wanted to use some of the existing prolific output, whose controversial and confrontational imagery to insert a different perspective into how these use of black sexual stereotypes illuminates the traumatic myths are told. I wanted to go beyond the suggestive abuse of the American slave trade, particularly within the 38 ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ quality of Indian culture.” Antebellum South.39 Walker’s work is a complex blend of fiction, the romance novel, history, autobiography and popular culture. Her large installations, countless drawings, prints and puppet animations are made up of black paper Rorschach-style typologies appropriated from the eighteenth century silhouette portraiture tradition.

Su-en Wong Lovers Knot, 2006 Courtesy of Danese Gallery Her nightmarish narratives are replete with obscene classified, judged and exploited based on their physical violence, lewd sexual acts, fornication, objects in orifices, attributes.41 Her collages delve into the split nature of defecation and a reversal of power relationships between cultural identity, referencing colonial history, fashion and master and slave. Walker explores the duplicitous contemporary African politics. She describes her practice constructs of Madonna/Whore and black subject as in the catalogue for the 2007 group exhibition Collage: noble savage/violent avenger. Her work simultaneously The Unmonumental Picture, at the in New seduces and implicates the viewer. York: “When images in my work merge, they participate Pandora’s Box exhibits Kara Walker’s first film, in a raucous mating dance producing a stinky, sinister, Testimony: Narrative of a Negress Burdened by Good gorgeous, little transgender fruit.”42 In Histology of the Intentions, from 2004. It is a black-and-white silent puppet Different Classes of Uterine Tumors, a series of twelve animation housed inside the dominant video box structure collages created in 2006, Mutu uses nineteenth century in the centre of the Dunlop Art Gallery exhibition space, medical diagrams as a basis for invented portraiture. the quintessential physical symbol of the exhibition’s Symbolic of colonial power, the original illustrations adopted myth. Like Pandora’s, this video box unleashes suggest a wide range of cultural pre-conceptions: from 28 secrets within a dimmed space designed for viewing and the ‘superiority’ of European ‘knowledge’ to the classifi- reflection.Testimony tells, in eight-minutes, the tragicomic cation of nature and race into genealogical hierarchies. fable of a ‘revised’ relationship between slave and master, Drawing from the aesthetics of traditional African crafts lynched by his slave lover, a Cinderella who revolts against and goddess-like figures, Mutu engages in her own this despotic “prince.” For this piece, Walker created form of story telling, as influenced by the Kenyan stories small-scale renditions of her most famous characters: passed on by her grandmother; her works document the Auntie, the master, the master’s son, and the Negress the contemporary myth-making of an embattled cultural mistress. We can see the shadows of the artist’s hands heritage.43 Mutu’s perverse, incongruous amalgamations and arms in the background as she operates her puppets of physical and cultural hyper-elaborated ‘ideals’ consist with string. The story takes place on a cotton plantation of painted surfaces, found materials and mismatched and is narrated through a series of intertitles that tell body parts and prosthetics clipped from misogynistic how the white men, in their “longing for fulfillment,” porn and fashion magazines, each an isolated feature temporarily relinquish their bodies to the slave women.40 of epitomized beauty: chiseled cheekbones, kiss-me Trained as both a sculptor and an anthropologist, lips, petite ears, and smouldering eyes. Together, they Wangechi Mutu began her work with an exploration of the become a grotesque mask of racial parody, like Ellen Kara Walker Installation view of video box, Testimony: Narrative of a Negress Burdened by 2008, Dunlop Art Gallery way in which people, especially black women, are identified, Gallagher’s minstrels. Centred over these medical Good Intentions, 2004, still from B&W video, 8:49 Photography: Trevor Hopkin Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co. diagrams, her composites of physical ‘perfection’ become models of contamination and cancerous disease. The Carnivalesque Laylah Ali has said: “…we all understand the immediately revealed, usually derogatory, narrative contained within a and the Grotesque stereotype…In my…drawings I aim to fuse recognizable According to Mikhail Bahktin46 the carnivalesque, drawn types with question marks, fuse known narratives with from a popular folk tradition in which people disguised, things that are not as easily articulated.”44 In Pandora’s Box, crossed-dressed and performed in the streets, provided six of Ali’s drawings from her uncanny Typology series, an opportunity to blaspheme and mock dominant 2005-2007, include portraits, couples entwined, or a structures of authority, including family roles. The twosome with child. The figures are endowed with loaded tragicomic carnival offers an alternative expressive cultural signs and symbols: hoods, robes, masks and space that symbolises potentials for freedom, release uniforms from the military. Her other works also incorporate and renewal. On this ad hoc stage (such as Kara Walker’s everyday items: band-aids, a dodge ball, sneakers. Power puppet stage), the body could be re-invented through struggles, racial subjugation, oppression and political processes of inversion, subversion and appropriation abuse are major issues explored in her work. The comics while at the same time assimilating into and exploding 31 are at once childish and playful, ominous and inauspicious. existing social and cultural structures.47 Many of the artists Exploring a terrain reminiscent of Mutu’s “transgender in Pandora’s Box convey this process of embodied and fruit” collages, Laylah Ali and Shary Boyle work with interiorised reinvention and subversion in their own work. androgynous figures. In their re-interpretations of historical Laylah Ali and Wangechi Mutu’s art project an ethnography and identity classifications, both Mutu and Ali ambiguous “anthropology run amok.”48 Both artists use are “making room for [delicious new gender communities] costume and the grotesque to convey traditions of iden- in a crowded world.” The gender-ambiguous individual tification and classification based on observable physical today has a “flexibility [that] has become a powerful traits. Power, oppression, violence, gender and racial commodity…the transgender body has emerged as identity all become important themes. The figures in their futurity itself, a kind of heroic fulfillment of postmodern drawings become hybridised, with characteristics derived promises of gender flexibility.”45 Mutu and Ali tease from multiple cultural sources. Wangechi Mutu remarks, viewers with this ‘jumbled’ gender mis-recognition to “Camouflage and mutation are big themes in my work, Laylah Ali imagine discontinuous selves that question identities but the idea I’m most enamoured with is the notion that Untitled, 2006-2007 based on gender stereotypes and bodily signifiers. transformation can help us to transcend our predicament. Courtesy of 303 Gallery We all wear costumes when we set out for battle. The the Dunlop Art Gallery audience in Regina can explore language of body alteration is a powerful inspiration.”49 some of the most witty, candid, intimate, bewitching, Ali also forces viewers to re-examine identity constructs. powerful, and complex work created by women in Of her characters, she remarks: “The head-dresses have recent years, and view “one of their own” amongst been inspired by an amalgamation of hair, feather head- such esteemed international guests.53 It is time for dresses and the headgear of the Catholic hierarchy… Streifler’s work to engage with her transnational peers The details of the clothing hint at affiliations, status, aspi- on home turf. As Shary Boyle eloquently stated in an rations.” 50 The incongruous acts of these figureheads email discussion group with some of the participating suggest interiorities that do not match the status drag. artists, “This exhibition is interesting and unusual for a Leesa Streifler’s work has long been associated regional public gallery in Canada – to include such high with the carnival and the grotesque. Streifler has used profile artists from outside the country, and focus on her own body as the source of her critical reevaluation the excellent work of women,”54 many of whom are at of the woman’s perfect body ideal, and how the role of the forefront of critical attention around the world. women in different capacities can affect their overall 32 identity in stereotypical ways. “My drawing and textual interventions reflect on the role of women in domestic life, giving voice to repressed and unspoken desires and Surrealist Influences, emotions too confrontational, risqué and taboo to have ever been mentioned.”51 The artist has been interested Dreams, Self-Portraiture in exploring the female body in all its stages and glory: & Autobiography the pregnant body, the aging body, the domesticated body, the irregular body, using dressing up (and Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, used self-portraiture and cross-dressing) in various guises and costumes. In this Mexican folkloric traditions to explore aspects of her exhibition, Streifler returns to the Dunlop Art Gallery, persona – the outward appearance of self and the a decade after her solo exhibition of self-portraits, projected image presented and performed for public Normal, was curated here by Vera Lemecha.52 consumption. Her autobiographical work, replete Leesa Streifler Leesa Streifler represents a local force within with complex and evolved idiosyncratic symbolisms Parenting Revisited: the international company of artists represented in and signs leads to provocative reinterpretations of portrait at 5 and 15 years, 2008 Pandora’s Box. It is a rare and special opportunity that semiotics, psychoanalysis and the female masquerade. Photography: Lee Henderson Her method is a key antecedent to the practices of which life is ambiguous and uncertain. She is interested self-portraiture and signification that inform the work in exploring issues that may be anxiety-causing, such as of young artists Shary Boyle, Amy Cutler and Annie sickness, death and failed relationships.59 The vulnerability Pootoogook.55 They also draw on symbolism and and dysfunction evident in her characters is palpable – we hybridity, a morph of animal and human – and bizarre, wince with uncomfortable familiarity. Images range from complex, dreamlike scenarios, qualities or characteristics the demonised witch reminiscent from stories like Hansel in conversation with the formal Surrealist movement. and Gretel or Snow White, to a bloodthirsty vampire girl In the 2004 catalogue, co-curator in a scotch-patterned dress devouring a green marine Shamim Momin argues that the strong appeal of snail with wings, to lost souls marching across a galaxy transmogrification and the fantastic for young artists atmosphere towards a large conch shell, lit up by lava- today rests in the response to a “pervasive internal anxiety like hell fire or coagulating purgatory. “My work explores and uncertainty about the world, existing in concert personal alienation, longing and the female imagination. with a renewed desire for passionate engagement and The characters and situations I create compel an exami- re-enchantment.”56 The surreal chaos of our everyday nation of nature, childhood wonder, mortality, sexuality, lives is incorporated into the zones of alterity they create. gender and the supernatural….I honour the body in all its 35 Josée Drouin-Brisebois, Curator of Contemporary isolation, suffering and joy.”60 Her archetypal characters Art at the National Gallery of Canada believes that can be lonely, mischievious or angry. She offers unsettling “Fantasy becomes a strategic escape, a refuge from views that are repressed by society’s standards of what is all that is wrong in the world.”57 Fables, myths and deemed “acceptable” and hits nerves as her work offers fantasies are plastic enough to be reworked.58 scenarios of the inexplicable, frightening and puzzling. In her selection of ten watercolour and ink drawings Since 2005, Shary Boyle has joined artistic forces on paper for Pandora’s Box, developed between 2003-2007, with Winnipeg-based musician and song-writer Christine self-confessed “outsider” artist Shary Boyle paints fantastical Fellows. Their intimate collaboration uses the simplest scenes, featuring one to two central characters. The of tools: overhead projector, piano and voice. They were titles are often a clue to their predicaments. Boyle’s drawn to each other by virtue of their shared “folk art” international experiences influence the content of her aesthetics and styles. Boyle illustrates the lyrics of songs work created in that location, whether she is in London, composed by Fellows, which tell spell-binding, luminous Finland, Scotland or Germany. Some of these drawings tales of small towns, emergency wards and endless road Shary Boyle Scotch Bonnet, 2007 are a response to poems written by Boyle’s friend and trips. Boyle’s invented child-like silhouettes are projected Photography: Shary Boyle fellow artist Emily Vey Duke. Boyle presents worlds in overhead onto walls, enlivened by light, colour, movement and sound. Described as something of a Victorian light arms, teapot heads or horse hunch-backs. Enchanting show, Boyle also uses colour theatre gels, sands, string and enigmatic, her skillfully executed and meticulous and mirrors. The emotionally-charged performances topsy-turvy drawings are reminiscent of children’s book become magical, poetic outpourings of both artists’ illustrations by Victorian and Edwardian artists. Dutch psychological investigations into issues of power, alienation, genre paintings, paper folk dolls, Japanese ukiyo-e 61 longing and liberatory imagination. This practice links woodblock prints and nineteenth century fashion plates Boyle’s work to Kara Walker’s projection installations and also spring to mind.62 “Quirky and fanciful though they are, puppet animations, also featured in Pandora’s Box. Staged Cutler’s vignettes resonate with age-old struggles [old at the Dunlop Art Gallery to mark the occasion of the wives tales] that remain burning issues in our time.”63 Pandora’s Box opening, Shadow Songs was composed of In Accommodation, 2001, a large flock of robins Migrations, a haunting tune about change, told in three with red chests swoop and spiral above a young lady little stories, nestled among several other melodies, who floats in a large expanse of white space. A purple all within a captivating twenty minute performance. blue bird martin house (with room for nine) replaces Fellows sings about the girl on the catalogue cover, from the woman’s head, tilted back flat, as if bending over 36 Migrations: “Would you pick me up? I’m light as a feather, backwards to accommodate the birds who will enter Though I’m not afraid, I am not brave enough to offer.” and rest in her compartmentalised and vacant “bird Like Shary Boyle, Amy Cutler’s work creates unique brain”, which projects an attitude that is considerate, hybrids. This artist uses narratives that incorporate cooperative, helpful, hospitable, kind, neighborly, obliging, elements of fairy tales, phobias, cryptic personal polite, and unselfish, all signifiers of femininity. In her symbolism and the tradition of Surrealism. Often her hands she holds a saucepan of water. Household chores dream-like tableaux evoke both child-like wonder and are a recurring theme in Cutler’s works on paper. The a sinister psychological underside. Like the women style of the woman’s dress (c. 1940’s) and the pointy- in mythology, metamorphoses in Cutler’s world are roofed bird-house invoke periods when a woman’s role common; her main protagonists are usually women in was very clearly defined and delineated towards the recognisable settings or relationships, wearing intricately tyranny of drudgery. Birdhouses are a recurring motif in patterned, textured dresses and folk costumes, ranging Cutler’s works, her birds often metaphors for thoughts. from old-maid housecoats, tent frocks and hoop skirts to The theme of birds and ‘flying’ or ‘floating’ gather hip, bohemian garb indicative of notable periods in fashion momentum in this exhibition, bursting forth from Pandora’s Amy Cutler history. Her female characters may grow broom-stick box in delightful and scandalous array. A flying girl and Accommodation, 2001 Courtesy of The JPMorgan Chase Art Collection boy appear in the Fellows/Boyle Shadow Songs perfor- ski-doos, sexual fantasies, television, family meals and mance, streaming across the gallery walls. Everywhere is houses. Her peers include Kavavaow Mannomee, Nick falling and flight. Helene Cixous theorises that “Flying is a Sikkuark and Annie’s cousin , who has woman’s gesture – flying in language and making it fly. We a strong interest in terror, fantasy and surrealism.67 All have all learned the art of flying and its numerous tech- of these artists deal with the precarious nature of life in niques; for centuries we’ve been able to possess anything the North, gleaning inspiration from romantic and Inuit only by flying; we’ve lived in flight, stealing away, finding, mythologies. Annie’s drawings have also highlighted when desired, narrow passageways, hidden crossovers…. the community’s ongoing struggles with mental health, What woman hasn’t flown/stolen? Who hasn’t felt, dreamt, alcoholism, suicide, domestic violence and drug addiction performed the gesture that jams sociality? Who hasn’t as enduring scars of colonialism. Here are more healing crumbled, held up to ridicule, the bar of separation? Who scenes of her parents undergoing everyday activities and hasn’t inscribed with her body the differential, punctured a mother, taking care of her young child. The relationship the system of couples and opposition? Who, by some between parent and child is clearly paramount in Inuit life. act of transgression, hasn’t overthrown successiveness, Like some of Pootoogook’s maternalist drawings, one of connection, the wall of circumfusion?”64 Who could resist? Laylah Ali’s masked figures with bulbous headpiece has 39 Wangechi Mutu uses animals in her collages, too, in a baby strapped to her body. Leesa Streifler also takes order to create female hybrid humanoid and metaphoric up themes of motherhood and autobiography in her new creatures. Lauri Firstenberg cites Strange Beauty, 1929, work, She is consistent; She nurtures; She’s maternal; He in Hannah Höch’s series “From an Ethnographic Museum” thrives, 2007, influenced by the relationship with her son. as a point of departure for Mutu’s work, and for her fasci- In Streifler’s series of new portraits, entitled Parenting nation with the absurd and the abject.65 Höch was one Revisited, 2008, we see the artists’ critique of posed images of the only females in the German Dada group of artists taken by her uncle, a Winnipeg portrait photographer, from the 1920s and 1930s. Like Höch, Mutu has remarked when the artist was one and five years old respectively. that she is trying to slowly and thoughtfully “vandalize and The fifteen year old shot was Streifler’s high school year- eradicate that profane notion that beauty is singular book portrait. Streifler comments: “I analyse feminine 66 Wangechi Mutu or objective.” socialisation of the 60’s critically from both a feminist Histology of the Strongly relying on personal, symbolic and autobio- and humanitarian perspective. I am expressing feelings Different Classes of Uterine Tumors, 2006, graphical components, Annie Pootoogook is an Inuit of anger, regret and sadness over unintentional, yet Series of 12 works artist who often inserts icons from contemporary Inuit identity transforming messages I experienced as a Courtesy of Sikkema 68 Jenkins & Co. life into her drawings, including clocks, polar bears, child.” The photographs represent a history of the artist’s evolving consciousness over a ten year period. blue slide. The girls are engaged in “good” and “bad” Streifler has found that the naïve quality of those early adolescent behaviour, ranging from benign games, years of her life has provided her with fertile ground for tantalising charm and sexual curiosity, to outright mature reflection on her childhood, particularly from rebellious, aggressive, jealous, bullying and competitive her adult perspective as a mother.69 In Life Force in Two acts. We also witness the influence of peer pressure Realms (the social and the spiritual), 2008, the artist and the dynamics between individual and group. depicts a hovering, floating, partially human figure, almost Chitra Ganesh provides a surreal stage in her spiritual in its offering. Her large hands are not powerful comic series, depicting idyllic landscapes, classic – they are numb – taken from the artist’s suffering with motifs, Homeric-like panoramas, nudes, three-headed carpal tunnel. The figure is at once social and spiritual – a women and winged scalpels.73 The artist is interested conflation that the artist observes repeatedly in her life.70 in providing new views of the sacred in everyday life, Su-en Wong delicately renders with coloured pencils drawing particularly on sacred Hindu myths and morality, a multiplicity of small photo-realistic self-portraits in as well as very personal expressions of her sexual her acrylic diptych and singular paintings, each alluding identity, desire and fantasy. Like Shazia Sikander, 40 to different strands of the artist’s ego. Wong provides Ganesh questions the role of Eastern tradition and history the theatrical archetype, in both leading and supporting in relation to her diasporic identity as a South Asian roles.71 These young women are based on Wong’s memo- American woman. “I interweave and fuse personalized ries of growing up in an all-girls Chinese Catholic school in iconography and contemporary expressions of femininity Singapore, and her struggles to assimilate into American with traditional popular mythologies of the South Asian culture. The objects that the girls encounter and interact subcontinent, including Hindu, Buddhist, and Bollywood with are often metaphors for states of mind. These content and popular tales to create mythological hybrid pubescent, erotically-charged girls are typically placed tableaux. Much of my work engages the term ‘junglee’ within a large colour-field, flat-plane painting.72 The titles (meaning savage or literally ‘of the jungle’), an old colonial of Wong’s paintings usually recall the commercial paint Indian idiom used to describe women who were perceived chips that she uses for her monochrome backgrounds; as defiant or transgressing social norms.”74 thus she alludes to narratives that these titles evoke and In Dazzle, 2006, the artist has developed a digital demonstrates how colour can capture in/tangible cultural c-print narrative full of dismembered characters assumptions that elicit emotional response. In Lovers Knot, immersed in an ambiguous love triangle, rich with 2006, multiple copies of the artist surround and perch on symbols and metaphors. The title of the work alludes to top of a schoolground play-house or labyrinth, with the dazzling yellow light surrounding a raised clenched Leesa Streifler Life Force in Two Realms (the social and the spiritual), 2008 Photography: Lee Henderson fist. Speech bubbles are filled with Chitra’s own prose, and beyond ancient myths. Inside Pandora #2, 2008, is except for an excerpted lyric, “Like the trembling heart a site-specific mural installation developed especially of a captive bird etc,” from Ewan MacColl’s (1957) for the Dunlop Art Gallery, completed by the artist over tune, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. Written for three days, that depicts the artist’s visionary heroine.76 his wife, Peggy Seeger, the song declares undying love. The imagery refers to an old Bollywood love story in Eventually cast as overture for the film Play Misty For which attraction and loss are core themes, merged Me, 1971, (the original Fatal Attraction), and performed with mysterious and sacred elements, some of which by Roberta Flack, this now famous title track became may not be socially appropriate (hence the reference to associated with an obsessive female stalker, a reversal the Pandora myth in her title). One text reads “behind of the usual gendered power dynamic. The musical her thousand moons”, which refers to a rite of passage reference thus recalls Walker’s inversion of power that is celebrated in India when a person has seen 1000 relations in Testimony. Dazzle’s characters include a moons by the time they reach their 83rd birthday. Taken decorated South Asian woman with a visionary third from a Bollywood song performed by Geeta Dutt, the eye and a pair of legs with exposed vagina and pubic other text is in Urdu and must be read from right to left. hair, who emerges upside-down from the lips of a luscious “Waqt ne Kiya, Kya Haseen Sitam” translates to “What 43 red lotus75 reminiscent of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus a tyranny the passage of time, what time has done.” (c. 1482-1486), an influential and iconic feminine form. The The passage of time that is encapsulated by Pandora’s artist also references transformation and the influence of Box invokes a generation of women artists whose archetypes from Alice in Wonderland, Hercules and time has come. Their inward focus breaches surfaces Hydra, and stories from the Brothers Grimm. Like Kara that deny, disguise, eroticise and reveal. Ultimately Walker, Ganesh cleverly appropriates from a plethora the way that we interpret the work in Pandora’s Box of received fables, in order to deflate any claims to a has much to do with our own obsessions, existential pristine feminine, through the use of arbitrary irony, wit dilemmas, anxieties, and inner conflicts.77 This is the and sarcasm. Viewers are left to unravel exactly what the one of the many gifts that Pandora’s Box offers us. characters in her stories are dazzled by, and what they repel from. Ganesh creates large-scale 3D collage and drawing Amanda Cachia is Curator, murals, which often depict floating ethereal female Dunlop Art Gallery forms, comfortably juggling objects and identities within

Chitra Ganesh Dazzle, 2006 Courtesy of Thomas Erben Gallery Chitra Ganesh Annie Pootoogook installing a mural for Face Transformation, 739 Feet Running Wall, Cape Dorset, 2001/02 Gwangju Contemporary Photography: Don Hall Art Museum Gwangju, Korea, 2005 Courtesy of Thomas Erben Gallery Leesa Streifler She is consistent; She nurtures; She’s maternal: Annie Pootoogook He thrives, 2007 Composition (Mother Photography: Lee Henderson & Child in Amautik), Cape Dorset, 2006/07 Photography: Don Hall 1 Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: and δωρον (doron) “gift”, as cited eds. Elaine Marks and Isabelle de 24 Meeka Walsh, “Uneasy Painting: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde in Hesoid, translated by M.L. West Courtivron (Schocken Books, 1981), The Ambiguous Art of Shary Boyle”, (The Crossing Press, 1984), 54. (1966), Theogony, Works and Days 103. Shary Boyle in Interview with Robert (Oxford University Press, 1966), no Enright, Border Crossings, Volume 26 2 Allison, Audre Lorde 16 Donald Haase, ed., Fairy Tales and page number available. No. 3 (2007): 89. quoted in “Public Silence, Private Feminism: New Approaches (, Terror” in Skin: Talking About Sex, 7 Riane Eisler, Sacred Pleasure: Michigan: 25 Ibid, 93. Class & Literature (New York: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Press, 2004), 23. 26 Nancy Campbell and Deborah FireBrand Books, 1994), 101. Body – New Paths to Power and Love 17 captured from Geeta Kapur’s Root, “Inuit Art and the Limits of (HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), 267. 3 Anne Carson, “Dirt and Desire: essay “Gender Mobility: Through Authenticity” in Annie Pootoogook Essay on the Phenomenology of 8 Carrie Vassallo, Pandora’s Box: the Lens of Five Women Artists in (: Alberta College of Art Female Pollution in Antiquity” in Men A Collection of Collections (: India” in Global Feminisms eds. Linda & Design, Illingworth Kerr Gallery, in the Off Hours (Canada: Vintage, London Regional Art & Historical Nochlin and Maura Reilly (New York: 2007), 26. 2001), 133. Museums, 1999) 12. Brooklyn Museum of Art, 2007), 79. 27 Hilary Robinson, Reading Art, 4 Several writers have talked about 9 Riane Eisler, Sacred Pleasure: 18 Helene Shulman Lorenz, “Thawing Reading Irigaray (London and New Pandora in a positive light, as originally Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body Hearts, Opening a Path in the Woods, York: I.B.Tauris, 2006), 34. bearing gifts, including Charlene – New Paths to Power and Love Founding a New Lineage” in This 28 One is reminded of the beautiful Spretnak, Lost Goddesses of Early (HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), 73. Bridge We Call Home eds. Gloria Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic E. Anzaldua and Analouise Keating Sky Goddes-Egyptian Acrobat character(s) present in the mixed Myths, (Beacon Press, 1981) and 10 Amelia Jones, “Postfeminism, (Routledge, 2002), 497. media work of seminal artist Nancy Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to Feminist Pleasures, and Embodied 49 19 Kristin Chambers, Threads of Spero, see Jon Bird, Jo Anna Isaak, the Study of Greek Religion (1903) Theories of Art” in The Art of Art Vision: Toward a new Feminine Sylvere Lotringer, Nancy Spero (1922), 280-85. Over time, the story History: A Critical Anthology ed. Poetics, Cleveland Center for (Phaidon, 1996). evolved so that popular, androcentric Donald Preziosi (Oxford and New York: Contemporary Art (New York: Greek myth tells us that Zeus gave Oxford University Press, 1998), 383. dap Publishers, 2001), 19. 29 Annie Sprinkle, Post Porn Pandora a jar containing all of the 11 Merrily Kerr, “Wangechi Mutu’s Modernist: my 25 years as a multi- troubles and ills that mankind now Extreme Makeovers”, Art On Paper, 20 Maura Reilly, “Toward Transna- media whore (Cleis Press, 1998). knows including Old Age, Sickness, Vol. 8, No. 6, (July/August 2004). tional Feminism” in Global Feminisms Insanity, Vice and Passion, and told eds. Linda Nochlin and Maura Reilly 30 “Ghada Amer defines ‘double her not to open it. Unfortunately her 12 Anne Carson, “Dirt and Desire: (New York: Brooklyn Museum of Art, submission’ as the act of taking curiosity got the best of her and she Essay on the Phenomenology of 2007), 31. images exclusively rendered for the opened it, unleashing the evil spirits Female Pollution in Antiquity” in Men male gaze and re-presenting them into the world, as cited in Patricia in the Off Hours (Canada: Vintage, 21 Inderpal Grewal & Caren Kaplan to empower the subject of the gaze, Turner, Patricia & Charles Russell 2001), 140. (eds.), Scattered Hegemonies: Post- not the viewer.” Valerie Cassel Oliver, modernity and Transnational Feminist Perspectives 148: Su-en Wong: The Coulter, Dictionary of Ancient Deities 13 Ophira Edut, BUST magazine, (Oxford University Press, 2001), 372. Practices (University of Minnesota Strange and Fascinating World of issue & date not available. Press, 1994). Su-en Wong (Houston: Contemporary 5 Marina Warner, Monuments and 14 Inga Muscio, cunt (California: Seal Arts Museum, 2005). Maidens: The Allegory of the Female 22 Susan Sellers, ed., passage Shary Boyle and Press, 2002), xxxi. Form (Picador Press, 1985), 214-215. quoted from “The Newly Born 31 Neville Wakefield, “Ghada Amer: Christine Fellows, 15 Luce Irigaray, “The Sex Which is Woman”, in The Helene Cixous Reader Embroidering a Delicate Deception”, Shadow Songs performance 6 Means “all gifts”, derived from a Not One” in New French Feminisms (Routledge, 1994), 38. Elle Décor (February-March 2000): at Dunlop Art Gallery, combination of Greek παν (pan) “all” no page number available. Friday May 16, 2008 23 Ibid, 40. Photography: Jeff Nye 32 Judith Butler, “The Lesbian Phallus models of citizenship, nationalism, 42 Collage: The Unmonumental 51 Leesa Streifler, artist statement, 59 Meeka Walsh, “Uneasy Painting: 67 These three young Inuit artists are origin disrupting surfaces, images, and the Morphological Imaginary” in religious expression, public behavior, Picture, the New Museum, New York, Where she’s at (Toronto: Harbourfront The Ambiguous Art of Shary Boyle”, featured in an article by Amy Karlinsky, social spaces, and hegemonic culture Bodies that Matter (Routledge, 1993), and sexuality. Artist statement in body curated by Richard Flood, Laura Centre, York Quay Centre, 2006). Shary Boyle in Interview with Robert entitled “Land of the Midnight Sons – exploding traditional notions of the 57–92. of email (February 2008). Hoptman, Massimiliano Gioni (New Enright, Border Crossings, Volume 26 and Daughters: Contemporary Inuit lotus and more. 52 Vera Lemecha, Leesa Streifler: York: Merrell Press, 2007), 74. No. 3 (2007): 90. Drawings”, Border Crossings, Issue 33 Dinner Party has been described Normal (Regina: Dunlop Art Gallery, 38 artist statement, VelvetPark, no No. 105 (2008): 66-83. 76 This was a work that was as “perhaps the first effort to date available. 43 Merrily Kerr, “Wangechi Mutu’s 1998), 5. 60 email conversation with the artist originally created in 2006 in a group embrace a transnational spread of Extreme Makeovers”, Art On Paper, (February, 2008). 68 email conversation with the artist exhibition entitled Murals for Newman 53 Kristin Chambers, Threads of feminist art today.” Eleanor Heartney, 39 Unlike Walker’s characters, Vol. 8, No. 6, (July/August 2004). (February 2008). Popiashvili Gallery in New York. Vision: Toward a new Feminine 61 a genre style of painting and “Worldwide Women”, Art in America movies such as D.W. Griffith’s Birth Poetics, Cleveland Center for printmaking developed in Japan from 69 Ibid. Amy Cutler (June/July 2007), 164. of a Nation, 1915 and Gone with the 44 Laylah Ali in conversation with 77 Lisa D. Freiman, Wind, the 1936 novel by Margaret Cylena Simonds, Curator, Exhibition Contemporary Art (New York: dap the 17th to the 19th centuries and Paintings and Drawings, 70 Ibid. 34 Laurie Ann Farrell, Looking Both Mitchell and the 1939 film, both Projects, inIVA, “Laylah Ali: the Publishers, 2001), 9. marked by the depiction of the Museum of Art (Germany: Hatje Ways: Art of the Contemporary reference the relationship between kiss and other warriors” (London: leisure activities of ordinary people; Perspectives Cantz, 2006), 26. 54 quote from email discussion Shary 71 Valerie Cassel Oliver, African Diaspora, Museum for African master and slave through a 2006/2007). interestingly, these paintings also 148: Su-en Wong: The Strange and Boyle (January 14, 2008). Art, New York (Ghent: Snoeck romanticised lens. included portraits of courtesans faces Fascinating World of Su-en Wong 45 Judith Halberstam, In a Queer Publishers, 2003). 55 “The autobiographical has and vulvas. (Houston: Contemporary Arts 40 “Of course, the problem is that Time & Place: Transgender Bodies, become an important means through Museum, 2005). 35 Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, Su-en power has no conscience, and as Subcultural Lives (New York University 62 Kristin M. Jones, “Amy Cutler”, which women have explored the Wong (New York: Danese Gallery, viewers are quickly told, the women Press, 2005), 18. Frieze (September, 2004). social and psychic production of 72 Wong thus pays homage to her 2007), 3. refused “to subvert to the old order” artistic influences, including artists 46 M. M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His feminine identity…In the 1970s and 63 Laura Auricchio, “Amy Cutler”, and instead they “rounded ‘em Mark Rothko, Agnes Martin and 36 Valerie Cassel Oliver, Perspectives World, translated by Hélène Iswolsky 1980s feminist practices of writing, Art Papers (July/August 2007). 50 up” and murdered their masters/ Ellsworth Kelly. She expands on the 51 148: Su-en Wong: The Strange and (Bloomington: Indiana University film-making and art emerged that lovers….A tragicomedy, Walker’s 64 Helene Cixous, “Laugh of the ideals of Abstract Expressionist Fascinating World of Su-en Wong Press, 1993). used the investigation of the past in fable, presented in the spirit of slave Medusa” in New French Feminisms painters of the 1950s and the Colour (Houston: Contemporary Arts order to uncover clues to the pres- testimonials, delves into the flaws of 47 Isolde Brielmaier, “Wangechi eds. Elaine Marks and Isabelle Field painters of the 1960s and 1970s. Museum, 2005). ent.” Rosemary Betterton, An Intimate assigning any kind of moral superiority Mutu: Re-Imagining The World”, de Courtivron (Schocken Books, Distance: Women, Artists and the 73 Chitra Ganesh, Upon Her 37 This series is one of India’s largest in the realm of human emotions.” Parkett 74 (2005): 8. 1981), 258. Body (Routledge: 1996), 173. Precipice press release, Thomas selling comic book series, with more Yasmil Raymond, “Maladies of Power” 48 Alex Baker, Laylah Ali: Typology, 65 Wangechi Mutu, interview with Erben Gallery, New York (2007). than 90 million copies sold in 20 Indian in exhibition catalogue Kara Walker: 56 Carly Berwick, “Absolutely Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Lauri Firstenberg, Looking Both languages. Founded in 1967 by Anant My Complement, My Enemy, My Fabulist: Artists mine fairy tales and 74 Chitra Ganesh artist statement Arts, Philadelphia (New York: dap Ways: Art of the Contemporary Pai, the series retells stories from the Oppressor, My Love, Walker Art fables for contemporary takes on within body of email (February 2008). Publishers, 2007), 3. African Diaspora, Museum for African great Indian epics, mythology, history, Center (New York: dap Publishers, familiar narratives” ARTnews, 104, Art, New York, by Laurie Ann Farrell folklore, and fables in a comic book 2007), 365. 49 Wangechi Mutu, interview with no. 9 (October, 2005): 160. 75 In China and India, the lotus is (Ghent: Snoeck Publishers, 2003), format. They are read and distributed Lauri Firstenberg, Looking Both symbolic of coupling, purity, inno- 41 “Central to this consideration are 57 Sheila Heti, “Ornamental Impulse”, 137. widely both on the South Asian Ways: Art of the Contemporary cence, beauty, birth and immortality. the histories of imperialism, genocide, by Josee Drouin-Brisebois in A new exhibition, Exploding the Lotus, subcontinent, as well as in the South African Diaspora, Museum for African 66 Collage: The Unmonumental slavery and diaspora, who have Otherworld Uprising (Conundrum at the Art and Culture Center of Asian diaspora (Canada, England, Art, New York, by Laurie Ann Farrell Picture, the New Museum, New York, inscribed their violent histories onto Press, Montreal, QC, 2008), 38. Hollywood, FL, presents a selection US, Australia, and Caribbean). (Ghent: Snoeck Publishers, 2003). curated by Richard Flood, Laura both the individual body and the body of South Asian artists from Feb Intended to educate children about 58 Carly Berwick, “Absolutely Hoptman, Massimiliano Gioni (New politic.” Celina Jeffery, Wangechi 50 Laylah Ali in conversation with 29 – May 25, 2008, whose work the cultural history of South Asia Fabulist: Artists mine fairy tales and York: Merrell Press, 2007), 74. Mutu: The Cinderalla Curse (Georgia: upends traditional cultural, spiritual, (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Cylena Simonds, Curator, Exhibition fables for contemporary takes on Savannah College of Art and Design, Projects, inIVA, “Laylah Ali: the and political facets of their national Bhutan and Burma), Amar Chitra 2007), 2. familiar narratives” ARTnews, 104, Katha comics provide prescriptive kiss and other warriors” (London: no. 9 (October, 2005): 161. 2006/2007). The exhibition Laylah Ali: Drawings Shary Boyle was born in 1972 in by Jessica Bradley a r t + projects, School of Painting and Sculpture and 1996), and Yale University (MFA, 2000). Annie’s childhood, lovingly recording throughout Canada. Streifler became Artist Biographies from the Typology Series presented Toronto, Ontario and is currently Toronto. the Henry Street Settlement Abrons Mutu’s work has exhibited interna- the particulars of settlement life in known for her work on body image 23 selections of the artist’s recent ink based in Toronto. Shary is an artist Arts Center, CAA Fellowship, and the tionally at galleries and museums Cape Dorset in the 1970s. Among and feminine identity and she has drawings. The show traveled to the whose practice includes drawing, Amy Cutler was born in Poughkeepsie, Astraea Visual Arts Fund. From 1998- including the San Francisco Museum Annie’s most recent achievements, since given numerous workshops on Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine painting, sculpture and live “projected New York in 1974. She studied at the 2003, Chitra was a Board Member of of Modern Art, the Miami Art was a solo exhibition of her work at these issues. Recent exhibit venues Arts in Philadelphia and the University light” performance. She received Staatliche Hochschule fur Bildende the South Asian Women’s Creative Museum, Tate Modern in London, The Power Plant in Toronto, in the include: Open Studio, Toronto, 2001, of Iowa Museum of Art in 2007 and a Diploma of Fine Arts from the Kunste, Stadelschule, Frankfurt am Collective (SAWCC). In 2003, Chitra the in summer of 2006. In addition to this Latitude 53 in Edmonton in 1999 the University of Arizona in 2008. She Ontario College of Art and Design Main, Germany, from 1994-1995; was a featured artist in Velvet Park New York, Kunstpalast Dusseldorf in honourable accomplishment, Annie and The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, is represented by 303 Gallery, NY. in 1994. In 2005 she presented a cel- received her BFA from The Cooper magazine and chosen as one of Germany, and the Centre Pompidou was recognised as an up-and-coming, Fredericton, 2002; Womens’ Art ebrated art/ music collaboration with Union School of Art, New York, in OUT magazine’s top 100 people in . She participated in the 2004 young Canadian artist by winning Resource Center, Toronto, 2003, and Ghada Amer was born in , Feist at the Olympia Theatre in Paris, 1997; and continued her studies at of the year. Chitra was Gregory Gwangju Biennale in South Korea. Her the prestigious Sobey Art Award in Contained, Neutral Ground, Regina, Egypt in 1963; when she was eleven, researched the origins of European the Skowhegan School of Painting Millard Fellow as one of New York work has been featured in several October 2006. Annie has most recently 2004. Two new bodies of work, her family moved to the south of porcelain in eastern Germany, per- and Sculpture in 1999. Having rapidly Foundation for the Arts Fellowship major exhibitions including Greater been honoured with an invitation to Deflations (2005) and Her Domain France, where she went to school, formed “live drawing” for the Sonar gained an international audience, awardees. Chitra’s drawings and New York at the PS1 Contemporary Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany, (a recipe card project) 2006 were university and art college. In 1996, Festival in Barcelona and maintained Cutler’s work has been included in installations have been exhibited in Art Center and The Museum of in June 2007. She is represented by exhibited in a group exhibition at the she moved to New York, where she a painting studio in Tampere, Finland. major exhibitions of contemporary Toronto, Brazil, Italy, India, Germany, Modern Art in New York, Black Feheley Fine Arts, Toronto. Harbourfront Centre in Toronto in now lives and works. She graduated Foreign residence and travel is art, including The Whitney Biennial in London, Gwangju, and New York, President at the New Museum of 2006. Her Domain (a recipe card from the Institut des Hautes Etudes central to her creative methodology, 2004 and Greater New York at PS1/ including the Museum of Art, Contemporary Art in New York Leesa Streifler was born in Winnipeg project) was also displayed in a solo en Art Plastique in France in 1991 her images map an intensely personal MOMA in 2005. She has had solo Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Museum, and the Barbican in London, and in 1957, where she received a BFA exhibition at The University Club, Laylah Ali was born in Buffalo, New and has studied at the Beaux-Arts, location within international tran- exhibitions at the Kemper Museum Asia Society, Momenta Art, Bose USA Today at The Royal Academy Honours from the University of in 2007. 52 York in 1968, and lives and works in and the School of the Museum sience. Boyle’s porcelain of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Pacia Modern, Apex Art, White in London. She is represented by in 1980. She lived in New 53 Williamstown, Massachusetts. She of Fine Arts, Boston. Amer’s work have been recently acquired by The the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Columns, Fondazione Sandretto Re Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York, York from 1980-86, earning an MFA Kara Walker was born in Stockton, received a BA from has been presented in numerous solo National Gallery of Canada, and her and the Institute of Contemporary Rebaudengo and ZKM. Chitra’s work Susanne Vielmetter in Los Angeles, from Hunter College of the City California in 1969. She received a and an MFA from Washington Univer- and group exhibitions at such venues work was featured in the Los Angeles Art in Philadelphia. Her paintings, has been reviewed in Time Out New and Victoria Miro in London. University of New York in 1983. She BFA from the Atlanta College of Art sity in St. Louis, Missouri. She opened as Deitch Projects, New York; the drawing anthology Kramer’s Ergot #6, drawings, and prints are included York, Art Asia Pacific Magazine, India currently lives and works in Regina, in 1991 and an MFA from the Rhode a one-person exhibition of paintings first Arab artist to have a one person published December 2005. Shary’s in the collections of the Hammer Today, and the New York Times. In Annie Pootoogook was born in where she has been a professor in Island School of Design in 1994. The and drawings at the Contemporary exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum 2007 solo exhibitions included Museum at UCLA; the Metropolitan 2004, she received the Astraea Visual Cape Dorset, Nunavut in 1969 and the Visual Arts Department at the artist is best known for exploring Art Museum of St. Louis, MO in of Art; the 2000 Whitney Biennial, Aspects and Excess, Canadian Clay Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Arts Award, and awarded an LMCC is the daughter of artist Napachie University of Regina since 1986. the raw intersection of race, gender, December 2004. She was included New York; PS1, New York; the 2000 and Glass Gallery, Waterloo, Ontario Art, and New Museum of Contem- Workspace. Recent projects include and Eegyvudlu Pootoogook and Streifler’s work has received and sexuality through her iconic, in the 2004 Whitney Biennial of Kwangju Biennial, South Korea; SITE and Wonderlust, Jessica Bradley porary Art in ; the an emerging artist workspace grant granddaughter of the celebrated recognition in the form of grants silhouetted figures. Walker’s work American Art, New York, and in 2003, Sante Fe, NM; the 1999 Venice Bien- Art + Projects, Toronto, Ontario. In Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; from the Center for Book Arts, and artist Pitseolak Ashoona. Annie is an and inclusion in public collections, has been exhibited at the Museum in the , Italy. Ali has nale; the 1997 Johannesburg Biennale; 2007 Shary was awarded a Canada the Indianapolis Museum of Art and residencies at the Artists’ Alliance emerging Inuit artist who began notably The Canadian Museum of of Modern Art, the San Francisco had recent one-person exhibitions and , London. 2004 Council International Studio grant, numerous private collections. Cutler in the Lower East Side and Smack drawing in 1997 under the encourage- Contemporary Photography, the , the Solomon at the Albright Knox Art Gallery, marked her first solo exhibition in where she spent several months is represented by Leslie Tonkonow Mellon, Brooklyn. A solo exhibition ment of the West Baffin Eskimo Canada Council Art Bank, the R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Buffalo, NY, Indianapolis Museum of Los Angeles when her show opened in a residency based in London, UK Artworks + Projects, NY. in Mumbai, India is scheduled for Cooperative in Cape Dorset. She Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Whitney Museum of American Art. Art, Indianapolis, IN and the Atlanta at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills. at Space Gallery, culminating in an 2009. She is represented by Thomas quickly developed a preference for MacKenzie Art Gallery, the Kenderdine A 1997 recipient of the John D. and College of Art Gallery, Atlanta, GA. Solo exhibitions were held in Italy and exhibition, The Clearances. Shary was Chitra Ganesh was born in 1975 in Erben Gallery, New York and Haas + drawing scenes from her own life, and Gallery, University of Saskatchewan, Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation The artist published a 40-page book France in 2007. Her first major U.S. also shortlisted for the 2007 Sobey Brooklyn, New York City and currently Fischer, Zurich. has become a prolific graphic artist in the , City of Achievement Award, Walker was the of her work for Projects 75 at the retrospective, Ghada Amer: Love Has Award. Her first major Canadian solo lives in Brooklyn. She received a BA the intervening years. In 2003, Annie’s Regina and the City of Winnipeg. United States representative to the Museum of Modern Art, NY in 2002, No End is on display at the Brooklyn exhibition, Shary Boyle: The History of magna cum laude from Brown Wangechi Mutu was born in Nairobi, first print was released: an etching She was an artist-in residence at 2002 São Paolo Bienal in Brazil. In and received the Regione Piemonte Museum from February 16-October Light, was presented at the Southern University, and an MFA from Columbia Kenya in 1972. She moved to New York and aquatint drawn by the artist Toronto’s Open Studio in 2001 and 2007, The Walker Art Center in Prize from the Foundacion Sandretto 19, 2008. She is represented by Alberta Art Gallery in Lethbridge in University in 2002. Awards and in the 1990s to study anthropology on a copper plate. The image, titled NORMAL, originating at the Dunlop Minneapolis, MN, curated a large-scale Re Rebaudengo per l’arte in 2001. Gagosian Gallery, NY. 2008. Shary Boyle is represented residencies include the Skowhegan and fine art at Cooper Union BFA( , Interior and Exterior, is a memory of Art Gallery, Regina in 1997 toured survey of her work with accompanying publication entitled Kara Walker: Creative Con/Fusions: Interdisciplinary Gallery in Manhattan and Program My Complement, My Enemy, My Practices in Contemporary Art, eds. Manager at Aljira, a Center for Oppressor, My Love. The exhibition Contributors Lynn Hughes and Marie-Josee Contemporary in Newark, New traveled to ARC/Musée d’Art Lafortune (Optica, 2001) and Naming Jersey until 2006. Prior to that, moderne de la ville de Paris, Whitney a Practice: Curatorial Strategies for previous positions included Curator Museum of American Art, NY, and the Future, ed. Peter White (Banff of the New England Regional Art Hammer Museum, LA. Walker cur- Centre Press, 1996). Her exhibition Museum in Armidale, NSW, Australia rently lives in New York where she Ann Harbuz: Inside Community, (2003-2004), Director of the Blake Joan Borsa is an independent curator, is on the faculty of the MFA program Outside Convention (1995) was Prize for Religious Art one of Australia’s at Columbia University. She is repre- art critic and Associate Professor organized by the Dunlop Art Gallery oldest and most established art prizes in the Department of Women’s and sented by Sikkema Jenkins & Co, NY. and traveled to the Mendel Art and Regional Arts Youth Project Gender Studies at the University of Gallery (Saskatoon), the Glenbow Officer, coordinating a tour around Saskatchewan. She has contributed Su-en Wong was born in Singapore Museum (Calgary), the Canadian regional NSW of art created by youth, in 1973 and currently lives and works to numerous public forums on con- Museum of Civilization (Hull), both in 2002. Amanda co-curated temporary curatorial practice and has in Brooklyn, New York. She received Oseredok – Ukrainian Cultural and YOUR SKY with Robyn Donohue for produced two international curatorial her MFA in painting from the School Educational Centre (Winnipeg), and Gigantic Arts Space in New York In Public: Shifting of the Art Institute of Chicago in conferences, the Art Gallery of Windsor. She is in 2005, funded by Advance and Curatorial Practice 1997, and recently finished studio (Montreal, 2001) known for her work on Frida Kahlo, the Australian High Commission, and Rethinking Exhibitions (Saskatoon, residencies at the Marie Walsh contemporary feminist art practice NY. Other curatorial projects have 2003-04). In her curatorial practice Sharpe Foundation, New York, and and her interdisciplinary perspectives included New England Picture: In she has worked with artists such the Skowhegan School of Painting on public art, public interventions and what they paint I see (2004) for the 54 and Sculpture, Maine. She has had as Eleanor Bond, Marlene Creates, contemporary curatorial practice. Her New England Regional Art Museum solo exhibitions at Stefan Stux Gallery, Aganetha Dyck, Hamish Fulton, current research builds on her Ph.D. and Puncturecapital (2001), displayed New York (1999) and at the Chicago Suzanne Lacy, Suzy Lake, Edward thesis Site- and Context-Oriented at the Asian Australian Arts Centre Cultural Center (1999), and exhibited Poitras, Reinhard Reitzentein and Curating: Staging Encounters (Gallery 4a) in Sydney. She was hired in the North American section of Tomiyo Sasaki. She has published Between Art and Everyday Realities. as Assistant Curator for the Dunlop the Kwangju International Biennale, extensively in various magazines, Art Gallery in January 2007 and in Korea (2000). Solo exhibitions at journals, exhibition catalogues and Amanda Cachia was born in June, was promoted to Curator. To anthologies including Third Text, n. Danese Gallery, New York were held Wollongong, NSW, Australia. She date, other curatorial projects at the paradoxa, Vanguard, Canadian in 2006 and 2007. She is represented received her BA/BCA from the Dunlop include Abnormal Growth, by Danese Gallery, New York. Woman Studies: An Introductory University of Wollongong (1999), and 2007 and Garden Folk, to open in Reader, eds. Andrea Medovarski and an MA in Curatorial Studies from summer, 2008, both at Sherwood Brenda Cranney (Inanna Publications Goldsmiths College, University of Village Gallery. Since 2007, Amanda and Education Inc., York University, London (2001). This was followed by has been Chair of the Dwarf Artists 2006), Obsession, Compulsion, internships at the Museum of Modern Coalition attached to the Little Collection: On Objects, Display Art and the Dia Centre for the Arts in People of America. In April, 2008, Culture and Interpretation, ed. New York. Other internships include Amanda completed two weeks of Anthony Kiendl (Banff Centre Press, Tate Modern, London, National volunteer work in a school for 2004), Unframed: The Practices and Gallery of Australia and Museum children with special needs in Lima, Politics of Women’s Painting, ed. of Contemporary Art, Australia. In Peru through Cross-Cultural Solutions. Rosemary Betterton (Tauris, 2004), 2004 she immigrated to New York Her curatorial practice revolves ART–Theory 1968-2000 Feminism– , City from Australia and worked as around themes of social justice. ed. Hilary Robinson (Blackwell, 2001), Assistant Director at Cynthia Broan

Kara Walker Testimony: Narrative of a Negress Burdened by Good Intentions, 2004, still from B&W video, 8:49 Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co. LIST OF WORKS All Retreat to the Cave in Composition (Father Tying his Parenting Revisited: portrait at Permanence 2007 Son’s Coat), Cape Dorset 2003/04 one year 2008 Height precedes width. Laylah Ali Shary Boyle watercolour, ink on paper Chitra Annie ink, pencil crayon c-print All dimensions are in centimetres. Untitled 2005 Under the Water, Guarded by 57.0 x 77.0 50.0 x 65.0 38.1 x 30.5 ink and pencil on paper Women 2003 Courtesy of Jessica Bradley ART + Ganesh Pootoogook Courtesy of Feheley Fine Arts, Collection of the Artist 35.0 x 27.5 watercolour, ink on paper PROJECTS, Toronto Dazzle 2006 Face Transformation, Toronto Courtesy of 303 Gallery, New York 61.0 x 46.0 digital c-print Cape Dorset 2001/02 Parenting Revisited: portrait at 5 Courtesy of Jessica Bradley ART + Untitled #2 2007 65.0 x 112.5 ink, pencil crayon, pencil Composition (Mother Feeding and 15 years 2008 Untitled 2005 PROJECTS, Toronto watercolour, ink on paper Courtesy of Thomas Erben Gallery, 40.0 x 65.0 Her Child), Cape Dorset 2002/03 c-print ink and pencil on paper 46.0 x 61.0 New York Courtesy of Feheley Fine Arts, ink, pencil crayon 38.1 x 53.3 18.75 x 13.75 Thinnest Web of Followed Courtesy of Jessica Bradley ART + Toronto 50.0 x 65.0 Collection of the Artist Courtesy of 303 Gallery, New York Dreams 2004 PROJECTS, Toronto Inside Pandora #2, 2008, Courtesy of Feheley Fine Arts, watercolour, ink on paper mixed media Composition (Outpost Camp), Toronto Parenting Revisited: portrait at Untitled 2006-2007 61.0 x 46.0 The Obvious Answer 2005 site-specific mural installation, Cape Dorset 2003/04 5 years 2008 ink and pencil on paper Courtesy of Jessica Bradley ART + watercolour, ink on paper Dunlop Art Gallery pencil crayon, ink Outpost Camp: Packing Up, c-print 58.75 x 47.5 PROJECTS, Toronto 43.0 x 52.0 Courtesy of Thomas Erben Gallery, 40.0 x 65.0 Cape Dorset 2004 38.1 x 30.5 Courtesy of 303 Gallery, New York Courtesy of Jessica Bradley ART + New York Courtesy of Feheley Fine Arts, ink, pencil crayon Collection of the Artist The Delicate Perversity of PROJECTS, Toronto Toronto 37.5 x 50.0 Untitled 2005 Obscene Excess 2005 Courtesy of Feheley Fine Arts, ink and pencil on paper watercolour, ink on paper The Effects of New Meds Composition (Mourning Toronto 56 35.0 x 27.5 50.0 x 43.0 Monitored 2007 Napachie’s Death), 57 Courtesy of 303 Gallery, New York Courtesy of Jessica Bradley ART + watercolour, ink on paper Cape Dorset 2003/04 Kara Walker PROJECTS, Toronto 57.0 x 67.0 Wangechi pencil crayon, ink Untitled 2006-2007 Courtesy of Jessica Bradley ART + 40.0 x 50.0 Testimony: Narrative of a ink and pencil on paper In the Winter, We Are Less PROJECTS, Toronto Mutu Courtesy of Feheley Fine Arts, Leesa Negress Burdened by Good Intentions 2004 60.0 x 47.5 Happy 2004 Histology of the Different Toronto 16mm film and video transferred to Courtesy of 303 Gallery, New York watercolour, ink on paper Classes of Uterine Tumors 2006 Streifler dvd, black and white, silent; 8:49 min. 61.0 x 46.0 digital prints and mixed media collage Composition (Mother & Child in Untitled ART + Edition of 5 2006-2007 Courtesy of Jessica Bradley 12 works, 57.5 x 42.5 each Amautik), Cape Dorset 2006/07 Self-Conscious Romantic 2008 PROJECTS, Toronto Courtesy of the Artist and ink and pencil on paper Amy Cutler Courtesy of the Artist and pen, pencil crayon acrylic on paper Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York 25.0 x 16.25 Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York 30.0 x 30.0 81. 3 x 111.8 Courtesy of 303 Gallery, New York Scotch Bonnet 2007 Accommodation 2001 Courtesy of Feheley Fine Arts, Collection of the Artist watercolour, ink on paper gouache on paper Toronto 61.0 x 46.0 97.5 x 74.5 Life Force in Two Realms (the Courtesy of Jessica Bradley ART + Courtesy of The JPMorgan Chase Composition (Hands in my social and the spiritual) 2008 PROJECTS, Toronto Art Collection, New York Pockets), Cape Dorset 2006 acrylic on paper Su-en Wong Ghada Amer ink, pencil crayon 81.3 x 111.8 The Bad Mother 2007 65.0 x 50.0 Collection of the Artist Lovers Knot 2006 watercolour, ink on paper Courtesy of Feheley Fine Arts, coloured pencil and acrylic on panel French Kiss 2003 70.0 x 50.0 Toronto She is consistent; She nurtures; 135.0 x 220.0 cm acrylic and embroidery on canvas Courtesy of Jessica Bradley ART + She’s maternal: He thrives 2007 Courtesy of the Artist and 175.0 x 175.0 PROJECTS, Toronto acrylic on butcher paper, Danese Gallery, New York Courtesy of Glenn Rice/Carol Rice 76.2 x 106.7 Collection of the Artist Acknowledgements busy schedule, with generous editorial was inspirational for her energy and opportunity to experience a new E.A. (Zab) Hobart, for your won- others, have been excellent supporters feedback from Bruce Russell and frankness. Joyce Zemans from York education on art and life: Amy Cutler, derful vision as a graphic designer, of the dag during my brief tenure. Marie Lovrod. I am honoured that she University suggested I read Joseph Wangechi Mutu, Kara Walker, Su-en my heartfelt kudos. Your experience, To the community of Regina, and has been engaged in the Pandora’s Campbell’s The Power of Myth. Helena Wong, Laylah Ali and Annie Pootoogook, skill and intelligence have been much the supporters of the Dunlop Art Box project with me. Gail Chin, in Reckitt at The Power Plant suggested my warmest gratitude and appreciation. appreciated in the journey towards Gallery: what a wonderfully high- the Department of Art History at the Marina Warner. Sigrid Dahle intro- The gallery dealers have served as publication of this catalogue. spirited community you are. I could University of Regina has also been duced me to Mentoring Artists for excellent contacts between myself The hard-working staff of the Dunlop not have brought this project to Pandora’s Box has been an incredibly supportive and shared the role of Women’s Art (mawa) in Winnipeg. and the artists, but more importantly, Art Gallery – for your professionalism, fruition if it were not for the knowledge enriching, serendipitous journey of editor/commentator on my essay, A majority of my essay was composed serve as lenders to the exhibition: camaraderie, encouragement, support that this community is a gallery-going ‘mythic’ proportions, a labour of along with Elizabeth McLuhan and during my one-week Self-Directed Jessica Bradley art + projects, and enthusiasm for Pandora’s Box: one – that enjoys the stimulation, love that I have enjoyed to every last Leesa Streifler. Curatorial Residency at the Banff Toronto; Melanie Medd at Feheley Dr. Elizabeth McLuhan, Jeff Nye, the challenge and the education detail. For this reason, it is the most My praise and eternal gratefulness Centre in February. Thank you to Fine Arts, Toronto; Michael Jenkins Corey Bryson, Angie Friedrich and one receives from an exhibition that important and ambitious exhibition of are extended to Marie Lovrod. I am those who facilitated my residency and Ellie Bronson at Sikkema Jenkins, especially Joyce Clark, thank you for hopefully poses many questions, my career to date, closely aligned to very fortunate to have worked not and shared interest in the project, nyc; Jennie Lamensdorf at Leslie providing a community to this work. sometimes provides answers and 58 my personal conceptual and aesthetic only with an astute editorial advisor, particularly Suzanne Steele. Tonkonow Gallery, nyc; Simone Also to the Gallery Facilitators: Margaret leaves the rest up to the individual 59 interests. There have been many but a knowledgeable and energetic I have had the honour, delight and Montemurno at 303 Gallery, nyc; Bessai, Laura Koroluk, Jessica Riess imagination. My job as Curator has wonderful people that I have met collaborator of the best kind: she privilege of meeting the following Carol Corey at Danese Gallery, nyc and Janell Ranae Rempel, thank you been made all the better because during my research who have shared completely exceeded my expectations artists face to face in the course of and Christopher Longfellow at for competently facilitating between of this community – one that I have with me their insights, their opinions and gave me hope when times were studio visits, singular or numerous Thomas Erben Gallery, nyc. Pandora’s Box and the public. Thanks been very happy to serve. and their pearls of wisdom. tough and deadlines drew near. Thanks — Ghada Amer, Shary Boyle, Chitra To the other lenders of work in to the install team: Chad Arie, Rob I would also like to thank The Joan Borsa and Lynne Bell from to Joan once again for recommending Ganesh and Leesa Streifler– my the exhibition, my sincere thanks: Bos and Karli Jessup who worked Canada Council for the Arts and the the University of Saskatchewan her to me. sincere thanks for sharing your The JPMorgan Chase Art Collection, with Chitra Ganesh. I would also like Saskatchewan Arts Board for their first provided me with their positive In New York, I was delighted to personal takes on Pandora’s Box with Glenn and Carol Rice, facilitated by to extend my thanks to the fabulous generous support of this project. impressions of my assembled list of meet Guyatri Chakravorty Spivak, me. I am so lucky to have worked Deitch Projects, and all the artists. infrastructure that the Dunlop Art Last, but not least, to my wonderful artists for Pandora’s Box. I owe a who holds a special relationship with with you, and to be able to share my Thanks to Yasmil Raymond, Assistant Gallery is housed in: the Regina Public partner, Cory Malone: thank you for special debt of thanks to Joan Borsa, the Dunlop Art Gallery as essayist passion for your work with a wider Curator, Visual Arts, at the Walker Art Library. It has been a pleasure to your patience, support and love. My not only for providing feedback on my for Jamelie Hassan’s solo exhibition public at the Dunlop Art Gallery. Center, mn, who provided fabulous operate as a Curator inside a public move to Regina has been made all the essay and general collegial exchange, Inscription, 1990. Maura Reilly, Curator To the artists that I did not meet, advice regarding the pursuit of a Kara library system for the first time. Jeff more worthwhile because of you. but also for composing a germane of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for but through whose work (and some Walker loan and installation instructions Barber, Library Director and Julie guest introduction, despite her very Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum email discussions), I have had the for the puppet animation. McKenna, Deputy Director, and many – amanda cachia Leesa Streifler Out of the Box, 2008 Courtesy of the artist