The Feminist Responsibility Project Beverly Semmes

Page 1 The Feminist Responsibility Project

Beverly Semmes

Page 2 Carwash, 2011. Ink on paper. 10.75 x 7 in.

Page 3 Page 4

FRP Edit #4, 2011. Ink on paper. 10.75 x 5.75 in. FRP: An Induction can appear as costumes, worn by gal- Ingrid Schaffner lery attendants as part of an exhibition, or by models in Semmes’s photographs and videos. The latter are usually family members and What is the Feminist Responsibility friends. (Getting people you care Project? And why is Beverly Semmes in about involved with your work is charge of it? By the time Semmes always important.) Semmes too performs emerged as an artist, the first wave of on occasion. She sometimes dons wig Feminism had already subsided, trans- and sunglasses to deliver a talk, formed from a political form of activ- or, even, while working. As an artist- ism to a cultural form of reference. in-residence at Pilchuk Glass School, Semmes is part of a generation who Semmes must have struck a glamorous made their mark during the early 1990s note, hanging around the glory hole with a Feminist take on Minimalist (as the firey center of the foundry is art of the 1960s. Think of the monu- called) in a patently 70s get up. mental, monochromatic, mostly metal, always hard monoliths of such art- The seventies was, of course, also ists as Donald Judd, Carl Andre, and the heyday of Feminism, which brings Richard Serra. Now apply fabric, us back around to the original ques- fashion, the body, craft, appetite, tion. The Feminist Responsibility desire, excess, because that’s exactly Project—or, to use the artist’s acro- what Semmes—along with such peers nym, FRP—makes its debut here at Rowan as Janine Antoni, Polly Apfelbaum, University Art Gallery in the form Kiki Smith, Jessica Stockholder— of a gallery installation with video, seemed to be making sculpture with, sculpture, photography, and two per- for, and about. formers. The immediate impression is of a set-up so highly stylized and For instance Semmes’s Red Dress, strange that is must stand for some- 1992, now in the collection of the thing. But what? The floor is covered Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. in a foamy sea of white chiffon fab- As big as the wall, and attached to ric, in the midst of which two women it by a hanger, this gargantuan vel- in voluminous gowns sit on chairs, vet gown cascades to the floor, where facing one another. One woman’s gown it pools and pushes us out of the is striped, the other’s a kind of way like a coming tide, a red tide. canine camouflage, all-over-dog print. Get it? The metaphors and imagery of As identified by their attire and other Beverly Semmes’s art typically flow insignia, the women are characters, in this direction: from the female the “Super Puritan” and “Bitch.” They body and out into the landscape. are doing a picture puzzle, spread Dresses are to be seen as vessels, out on a table between them. Overhead as Semmes’s pots made out of glass hangs a beautiful chandelier, hand- and clay demonstrate. Like cartoon crafted of clear molten crystal; it images of “making a pot,” these sculp- is lusciously globular. tural objects are gruntingly physical embodiments of the touch, the craft, There are pictures on the walls. A the pleasure, and work that goes projection covers one (like Warholian into building even the most elemental wallpaper, a picture that moves) of forms. Whether it’s pots or with a video of a woman’s feet, kick- dresses, Semmes’s works are environ- ing a potato over a frozen lake. mental in sensibility and scale, bil- The potato, painted pink, messes the lowing, icy, earthy, aqueous, or ice and makes a dull thudding noise luminous, depending on material and that fills the gallery space. On color, which are always superabundant the other walls hang a series of pic- and sensational. tures that come straight from the core of Beverly Semmes’s Feminist There is also a performance aspect Responsibility Project. to Semmes’s work. The dress sculptures

Page 5 Over the past eight years and shown Feminist art practices with their for the first time in this exhibition, infusion into the mainstream of wom- Semmes has been diligently col- en’s work and decoration. The potato- lecting and correcting images from kicking feet are flat-footed Freudian what she refers to as “gentlemen’s phallic symbols. Doing puzzles magazines.” This is a ladylike together is a favorite way of passing (Semmes hails from the South with time with her mother. roots in Arkansas and Alabama) refer- ence to her sources: vintage Hustler Like any sacred ceremony or mystery and Penthouse magazines, the pornogra- play, Semmes’s installation—with its phy of which she has masked with fetish objects, icons, and acolytes— strategic coats of paint. And if the looks just sanctimonious and serious five FRP works included at Rowan are enough as to appear a little ridicu- anything to judge by, this project lous to those of us who stand outside is much less straightforward than it of it. Is this how Feminism looks may sound. For one thing, despite today? Would only a bitch or a prig Semmes’s “corrections” it’s completely challenge the common wisdom that women obvious that we are being confronted have achieved equal opportunity as with shots of classic American porn. well as control over their own bodies? Splayed, spread, sucking on things, Has anyone been paying attention to the women are more masked than con- Congress’s gambit to slash support cealed by paint-jobs that only amplify of Planned Parenthood? Or, on a their objectification. Now things lighter note, has anyone read Tina get tricky and funny, too, since the Fey? The most successful woman in com- female objects on view are now simul- edy has been writing about her expe- taneously crude consumer objects riences coming up with the guys who of male desire and highly crafted dominate her profession. From an essay feminist works of art. Focus on the in The New Yorker, here is one of painted parts and you see these sil- Fey’s more pithy observations: “I have houettes, the scale and shapes of a suspicion—and hear me out, because which look a lot like Semmes’s sculp- this is a rough one—that the defini- tures: tactile, over-sized, sensual, tion of ‘crazy’ in show business is scatological, enveloping, grotesque, a woman who keeps talking after no one humorous, basic. If you grabbed wants to fuck her anymore.” Caustic, any one of these painted forms and set funny, fearless, I love this quote: it on the floor, you would see one it’s the Feminist Responsibility of Semmes’s pots or dresses. Masked Project at work. in color, all of Semmes’s forms spec- ify the body as something elemental Taken as a whole, Beverly Semmes’s with a hole in the center. FRP is a kind of camp. It disrupts the normal flow of pornography by stra- The provocation of the hole lies at tegically amplifying the awkward and the center of the FRP installation. obvious construction of the pose, the Note that the female attendants sit gaze, the exploitation, and the bod- inside an erogenous “O” of fabric on ies that make it work. And it calls the floor. (And of course, in porno- to order Feminism, along with social parlance, women are just holes.) issues and political responsibili- So what is the puzzle that the Bitch ties that, in so-called Post-feminist and the Super Puritan are piecing culture, we may not care to embrace. together? It’s an FRP image that Beverly Semmes’ FRP shows us that Semmes sent to a company in Germany Feminism retains the super bitchy, that will turn any picture into a pure crazy power to prove that we are jigsaw puzzle. Speaking of puzzles, no way near finished with the project. now seems like a good moment to intro- duce some of Beverly Semmes’s own notes about her installation. The use of fabric and craft, she writes, are intended to reference first wave

Page 6 FRP Edit #2, 2011. Ink on paper. 10.75 x 5.75 in.

Page 7 FRP Edit #3, 2011. Ink on paper. 10.75 x 5.75 in.

Page 8 Beverly Semmes is the HBO series Big Love’s Chloe Sevigny “The Feminist Responsibility Project” with her terrifying French braids, hyberbolic Catherine Liu ruffles and thin-lipped angry demeanor. If in the 1990s, I was trying to think through the new relationship between pop art’s Male artists and novelists of the 20th century mimetic relationship to commodity fetish- struggle with the label of “great American.” ism and a new genera-tion of women art- Women artists and novelists seem to be ists, today I am struck by the ways in which cosmopolitan and exotic—nation free. Less popular culture has been freely borrowing tortured by national traditions and identi- and poaching from the contempo-rary art ties, and yet also decidedly marginal to the scene, unabashedly influenced and shaped great nation building projects of the 20th by the aesthetics of performance and exper- century, women writers and artists have imentation in the contemporary arts. been spared the kinds of critical reception that shapes national identity. Russian émi- The originality of Semmes’ vision has had grés writing in English and living in New far reaching effects both inside and outside York City seem more likely at any moment the art world, and the new project breaks to write the great American novel than Joan ground in its full frontal assault on contem- Didion or Joyce Carole Oates. porary trends in feminist and anti-feminist performance and sculpture. From the Beverly Semmes’ work situates itself 1970s onward, women artists have dem- squarely in the history of American visual onstrated a remarkable degree of ambiva- obsessions. Although her practice is located lence and creativity with regard the female at the crossroads of many cultural and art nude. Putting their own bodies on display, historical traditions—feminist, craft, instal- Cosi Fan Tutti, Eleanor Antin, Hannah lation, performance, soft sculpture, its Wilke and Lynda Benglis invited us to look most bold statements are about the ines- long and hard at their young and defiant capable and powerful, even corrective and bodies. Self-display as provocation has redeeming qualities of American Puritanism become somewhat of a cliché, artists such in both the history of American feminism as Vanessa Beecroft and Nikki Lee have and the history of American sculpture and upped the performative ante, seeking out craft. The larger than life, high collared, forms of theatricalization in degradation high waisted dresses of her work from the and fetishization aimed at destroying any 1990s, their ritualistic installation and principle of aesthetic or formal unity that exaggerated proportions have had enor- curmudgeonly criticism might offer. Young mous resonance with and even influence on women artists are put in a reactive position interpretations of costume and attire, from with regard to feminism and their ambitions the austere proportions of Rei Kawakubo’s in the art world. Evasive maneuvers not- creations for modern working women, withstanding, a young woman artist today to the pools of fabric in Stanley Kubrick’s has to deal with aesthetic decisions as a set Eyes Wide Shut: the co-ed coven of sado- of refusals and affirmations, as if she had masochists drown in pools of fabric that to choose to accept or reject Semmes’ ironi- drape and hide the exquisite bodies of the cally heavy handed formulation, “feminist women who trained to service the New responsibility.” York elite’s darkest tastes. And then there

Page 9 Even though it may be intellectually and vans and tents to full scale reproductions academically scandalous to cite Clement of domestic spaces in gallery settings. Greenberg, Michael Fried and Rosalind Krauss in one breath, it seems increasingly By the 1980s, an impasse was reached in obvious that they have more in common contemporary art in the once productive with each other in their critical negativ- tensions between transgression and ity than they do with contemporary art prohibition. The more critically viewed a practice, which is more addicted to kitsch, practice was, the more transgressive ener- theatricality and installation than they could gies migrated to such forms of art making. ever possibly have imagined when they Certain forms of artistic activity have wrote their respective polemics against each become completely indistinguishable from of these techniques. Banksy’s recent film pathological forms of acting out. In the Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) demon- name of justifying the banalization of self- strates that in today’s art world, marrying display, self-mutilation and self-preoccupa- hype, celebrity and exhibitionism to super- tion, critical theory was both embraced ficial and facile political statements nullifies and rejected as an unwieldy apparatus any kind of aesthetic or formal aspirations upon which to build one’s ideas about the in the work of art. Semmes is channeling concept of making art itself. The middle a parodic energy similar to Banksy’s when classness of feminism both inside and she takes a risk with “Feminist Responsibil- outside the art world inspired many male ity.” While Banksy takes on the mindless artists of my generation to regard feminism aping of Warhol and its alleged commentary as a fundamentally blue stocking, moral on commodity culture, Semmes takes on uplift kind of movement, produced by the the gravity and seriousness of performance repressed to repress others. Every time, and sculpture, pointing to the ways in however, a critical intervention is made which they veer towards senselessness and denouncing contemporary trends and their erotic obsession. arcs of recognition, the trends become strengthened, not weakened. Jeff Koons Against Greenberg’s affirmation of the aggressively took on the sculptural and formal and emancipatory qualities of political rhetoric and self-display when he abstraction, engagement with kitsch and married La Ciocciolina and then posed with the manipulation and reproduction of his porn star wife as part of his “work.” mass produced objects is a part of every art school curriculum. Against Fried’s polemic The obscenity promoted by alleged work- against theatricality, absorption in the ing class maleness drew its energies from work is rejected in favor of ever more imag- its projected other – nagging middle class inative and theatrical ways to display lack feminist, hyper-intellectualized adver- of technical skill and formal ambition. saries, many of whom were academically Against Krauss, escalating sloppiness in oriented and invested in something once installation accelerates. The more disjointed known as “theory.” Very quickly, feminist the better, installation is now just one part artists were seen as Academicians, ped- of relational aesthetics where the artist antic in their sexual and aesthetic politics, mimics a service provider: cooking, palm- even when the artists themselves had istry and empathy are offered in a variety claimed self-exposure and the cloacal areas of messy, hands on settings, from camping as their very own areas of preoccupation.

Page 10 It was Mike Kelly against Mary Kelly. The sense of surveillance is uncanny in Richard Prince against Carolee Schneeman. Semmes’ work, but in the Feminist Respon- These dramas are played out against an sibility Project responsibility is crossed angry anti-elitism that might actually have with the pleasures of Puritanical censure taken a page out of Barbara Ehrenreich’s AND erotic voyeurism. Putting porn under work on middle class anxiety married erasure, Semmes “appropriates” and then to Norman Mailer’s notorious essay, “The violently marks up images of women White Negro,” with brainy white women twisted in acrobatic display of their genitals. trying to protect their recent advances into We get a hint of fingers inserted into art world representation while white men shaved orifices, mouths yearning and pul- slummed it as deadbeat dads and collectors sating with exhibitionist desires. Ritualized of Playboy bunny mudflaps. An African- and violent formal arrangements still char- American woman artist like Kara Walker acterize this work, but a primitive, raging in the meantime, took on American history. ambivalence about the powers of the image Her understanding of craftsmanship and of the female body course through its hucksterism and low entertainment has conceptual disposition. been a profound intervention in the fabric of contemporary art practice, but recently, The American relationship to the pleasures the most visible artists of color end up of seduction and the seduction of images coming from a Third World elite. is rife with contradiction: a disciplined relationship to visual pleasure seems to have In the 1970s and early 80s, there was some- been the end game of not just Calvinism, thing vaguely proscriptive about the use but feminism as well. And yet the coun- of “gaze” theory as a way of castrating if tercultural drive for hedonism, self-indul- not truncating the gaze: Laura Mulvey may gence and immediacy sets the stage for a be British, but the iconophobic impulses monumental battle of the wills. In Semmes’ in her critique of the “male” gaze were work, the struggle between Puritanism and definitely flowing from Protestant sources. pleasure takes place within a single art- Catholicism, the Baroque aesthetic and work: there is no “sex-positive” agenda in cults of Mary embrace excessive visual dis- Semmes’ engagement with erotic materials. play of the compassionate maternal figure. Why has she been so obsessed with por- Mulvey sort of told us it was wrong to look nographic images? Why are her installa- at women and desire them. There should tions of fabric so sensual and lush, and yet be a different gaze the 1970s feminists sug- so haunted by austere alien witnesses who gested, a gaze that recognizes and empa- seem to sit in judgment of any form of thizes with the other. There is nothing spectacle at all? empathetic about Semmes’ Super Puritan. The Feminist Responsibility Project repre- There is something tantalizingly violent sents a new strategic move on the chess- and grim about the defaced porn that board of aesthetics and feminist politics. Beverly Semmes has produced. The work Semmes is calling out the historical associa- is feral: in fact, as more of this work is tions between the political power of Amer- displayed, it is going to be quite obvious ican feminism and the moral power of that it is a serial and obsessive displace- American Puritanism, whose energies she ment of both erotic and repressive energies. has obviously found a way of channeling. Whether she is working with ceramics,

Page 11 glass or fabric, Semmes is always pushing the material to an excremental extreme, and then pulling back just at the point of breakdown in order to create something formally coherent and potentially uplift- ing. The dark side of the defaced porn is literally uncontainable – is there a moment of redemption for either porn or feminism? Does feminist responsibility produce a monstrous blob that moves out to stamp out all signs of pleasure with indelible ink? Or is Puritan vigilance the sexiest posi- tion of all?

We can better understand through the defaced pornography how throughout her career, Semmes has been revising the American Gothic and remaking it as the American grotesque. Giant dresses, blobs of fabric, blobs of ink are all out of pro- portion, celebratory and horrifying at the same time. In the most recent body of work, the performer as witness is a Puritan is hybridized with a feminist. This figure is a visionary, capable of calling us to arms when it comes to slavery and class oppres- sion: she is a pioneerswoman with enor- mous inner resources. Her presence itself indicates that judgment awaits us all. The drive, however, for self-indulgence and immediacy sets the stage for a monumental battle of the wills, played out in Semmes’ work against a horizon of political and formal innovation. The Puritan watches over us all, both outraged and satisfied by the agonies of feminist responsibility.

Page 12 FRP Edit #5, 2011. Ink on paper. 10.75 x 5.75 in.

Page 13 FRP Edit #1, 2011. Ink on paper. 10.75 x 6.5 in.

Page 14 Beverly Semmes 2004 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Born Washington, DC Neuberger Museum of Art, Richmond, VA Lives and works in New York, NY Purchase, NY Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, La Flor del Paradiso, Kunsthallen Düsseldorf Brandts Klaedefabrik, Odense, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Education Denmark Dublin Yale School of Art, MFA, 1987 She Moves, Whitney Museum of New York Studio School, 1983–84 2003 American Art at Philip Morris, Skowhegan School of Painting and In the O, Leslie Tonkonow Artworks New York Sculpture, 1982 + Projects, New York Big Silver, Michael Klein Gallery, Boston Museum School, Tufts New York University, BA, BFA, 1982 2002 Sea Green Petunia, Galerie 1995 Bugdahn und Kaimer, Kemper Museum for Contemporary One–Person Exhibitions Düsseldorf Art and Design, Kansas City, MO 2011 Baxter Gallery, Maine College of The Feminist Responsibility Project, 2001 Art, Portland, ME Rowan University Art Gallery, Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + The Museum of Contemporary Art, Glassboro, NJ Projects, New York Chicago Starcraft, Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN 2000 1994 (traveling exhibition) Ginza Artspace, Shiseido Co., Michael Klein Inc., New York Tokyo Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot, Paris 2008 Watching Her Feat, The Fabric Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Workshop and Museum, Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy Homes So Different, So Philadelphia James Hockey Gallery, WSCAD, Appealing?, (Collaboration with Farnham, UK Ingrid Schaffner), Testsite, 1999 Southampton City Art Gallery, Austin, TX Photographs, Susan Inglett, Southampton, UK Pink Arms, Pairs and Bumps, Dunn New York Camden Arts Centre, London and Brown Contemporary, Super-8 Films, GAGA, New York Dallas, TX Kunstverein Ulm, Germany 1993 Ezra & Cecile Zilkha Gallery, The Institute of Contemporary Art, 2007 Wesleyan University, Philadelphia Galleria Marabini, Bologna, Italy Middletown, CT 5501 Columbia, Contemporary Certainly (Chartreuse) / Really Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Culture Inc., Dallas, TX (Red), Galerie Bugdahn und Düsseldorf, Germany South Eastern Center for Kaimer, Düsseldorf Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Contemporary Art, Winston- Monica, CA Salem, NC 2006 Blood Shot Pot, Shoshana Wayne 1998 1992 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Galleria Marabini, Bologna, Italy The Sculpture Center, New York

2005 1997 1990 Hole/Pot/Dot, Nina Freudenheim Stuffed Cat, Wexner Center for the Special Projects, P.S.1 Museum, Gallery, Buffalo, NY Arts, Columbus, OH Long Island City, NY Ice Queen, Galerie Bugdahn und Artists Space, New York Kaimer, Düsseldorf 1996 La Flor del Paraiso 2, Leslie Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, Garden, Washington, D.C. Selected Group Exhibitions New York Beverly Semmes: Big Silver, 2011 Editions Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Smith College Museum of Art, Nicole Cherubini and Beverly Denmark Northampton, MA Semmes, Samson Projects, Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm Boston, MA Beach, FL

Page 15 2009 2001 L’art au Corps, le corps exposé de Dirt on Delight, Institute of Recent Acquisitions, The Hirshhorn Man Ray à nos jours, Mac Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Museum, Washington, D.C. Galeries contemporaines des PA and Walker Art Center, Sonsbeek 9: Locus/Focus, Arnhem, Musées de Marseille, Marseille, Minneapolis, MN The Netherlands France The First 10 Years: Selected Works 2008 from the Collection, The Irish 1995 Great Women Artists: Selections Museum of Modern Art, Dublin Material Dreams, Takashimaya from the Permanent Collection, Selections from the Permanent Gallery, New York Neuberger Museum of Art, Collection, Museum of Currents 95: Familiar Places, Purchase, NY Contemporary Art, Miami Institute of Contemporary Art, Focus:The Figure, Denver Art Boston Museum, Denver, CO 2000 Beauty Now, Haus der Kunst, 1994 2006 Munich, Germany Bad Girls, Wight Art Gallery, The Bong Show (Or This is Not a U.C.L.A., Los Angeles Pipe), Leslie Tonkonow Artworks 1999 Bad Girls, New Museum of + Projects, NY Regarding Beauty, Hirshhorn Contemporary Art, New York DressCode, Historisches und Museum, Washington, D.C. From Beyond the Pale, Irish Völkerkundemuseum, St. Gallen, The Rubell Family Collection Museum of Modern Art, Dublin Switzerland of Contemporary Art, Cornell Transitional Objects: Contemporary University, Ithaca, NY 1993 Still Life, Neuberger Museum of A Space to Grow, Irish Museum of First Sightings, Denver Art Art, Purchase, NY Modern Art, Dublin Museum, Denver, CO Extravagant: The Economy 2005 1998 of Elegance, Russisches An Inner Glow, Kunstverein L’entrelacement et l’enveloppe, La Kulturzentrum, Berlin Kunsthalle, Linden, Germany Villa du Parc, Annemasse, France ME-tissages, Museum voor Cathedral City, St. Ann’s Church, 1992 Industriele Archeologie en Textiel, Manchester, UK Empty Dress: Clothing as Surrogate Ghent, Belgium Pusan International Contemporary in Recent Art, Independent Art Festival, Pusan Metropolitan Curators Inc. (traveling 2004 Art Museum, Pusan, South Korea exhibition) On Conceptual Clothing, Musashino ART University and 1997 1991 Library, Tokyo Angel, Angel, Kunsthalle Plastic Fantastic Lover (Object A), About Sculpture, The Tang Wien, Vienna, Austria; Galerie Blum Helman Warehouse, Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY Rudolfinum,Prague, Czech New York Republic Emerging Sculptors, Sculpture 2003 Art/Fashion, Guggenheim SoHo, Center, New York New Material as New Media: New York The Fabric Workshop and International Istanbul Biennial, 1990 Museum at 25 Years, The Fabric Turkey Drawings, Althea Viafora Gallery, Workshop and Museum, The Hirshhorn Collects: Recent New York Philadelphia, PA Acquisitions, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 1989 2002 Washington, D.C. Eccentric Natures, Art Awareness Art Unlimited, Basel 2002, Basel, Gallery, Lexington, NY Switzerland 1996 Rapture: Art’s Seduction by Fashion A Labor of Love, New Museum of 1970–2002, The Barbican Contemporary Art, New York Selected Bibliography Centre, London, UK Biennale di Firenze: il tempo e la 2011 moda. Florence, Italy Liu, Catherine. “Feminist Container ‘96: Art Across Oceans, Responsibility Project,” Copenhagen, Denmark (exhibition catalogue)

Page 16 Sims, Patterson. Beverly Semmes, 2005 2000 Hunter Museum of Art, Lingen Kunstahalle, Lingen, Epifanie, Stedelijk Museum voor (exhibition catalogue) Germany, pp. 48–51 Actruele Kunst, Gent (exhibition Edith Newhall, “Semmes at Rexer, Lyle. “Romancing the brochure) Rowan,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Stone,” Art on Paper, Sept/Oct Hoet, Jan; Delrue, Mark; Koenot, May 8 Smith, Roberta. “Beverly Semmes,” Jan. Epifanie, Stedelijk Museum The New York Times, April 8 voor Actuele Kunst, Gent 2009 Harris, Jane. “Beverly Semmes,” (exhibition catalogue) Feldman, Melissa E. “Dirt on TimeOut NY, April 7–13 Delight,” Frieze Magazine, 1999 Summer 2004 Benezra, Neal, and Olga Viso. Bloemink, Barbara J. “Dress Codes: “Beverly Semmes,” Black Book Regarding Beauty, Hirshhorn Clothing as Metaphor,” Katonah Magazine, December Museum and Sculpture Garden, Museum of Art (exhibition Burkard, Lene; Luis Pérez Oramas, (exhibition catalogue) catalog) Beverly Semmes, La Flor del Zeitung, June 7 Kitschen, Gschwandtner, Sabrina. Paraiso, Kunsthallen Brandts Frederieke. “Beverly Semmes”, “Motion Blur; American Craft,” Klaedefabrik, (exhibition catalog) Kunstverein Ulm, Germany Gustavsbergs Konsthall On Conceptual Clothing, (exhibition brochure) (exhibition catalogue) Musashino art University Schaffner, Ingrid. Heavenly Body, Schaffner, Ingrid and Porter, Museum and Library (exhibition Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan Jenelle. “Dirt on Delight,” ICA catalog) University (Exhibition Brochure) (exhibition catalogue) 2003 1998 2008 Glueck, Grace. “Beverly Semmes: Cathedral City, St. Ann’s Church, Douberley, Amanda. “Beverly ‘In the O,’ Art in Review: The (exhibition brochure) Semmes + Ingrid Schaffner,” New York Times, April 4 “Dall’ Europa agli USA: Art- ArtPapers, Summer Princenthal, Nancy. “Semmes at Fashion”, Italian Vogue, May “Beverly Semmes at Dunn and Leslie Tonkonow”, Art in Enwezor, Okwui. “Translating Brown,” The Dallas Morning America, June p. 117 Cultures”, Siksi, the Nordic News, January 21 Festival, Pusan Metropolitan Art Schaffner, Ingrid, “Just What 2002 Museum, (exhibition catalogue) Makes Todays Homes So Art Unlimited 2002 (exhibition Different, So Appealing?”, catalogue) Basel, p. 114f. illus. 1997 Testsite 08.2, (exhibition Senie, Harriet F. Sculpture, Celant, Germano; Sischy, Ingrid; brochure) October, Vol. 21, No. 8, p. 95 Asbaghi, Pandora Tabatabai. Art/ Stillman, Whit. “Form and Fashion, Biennale di Firenze, 2007 Uniform,” in Rapture, Art’s (exhibition catalogue) “Dialogo Arte, Moda: Beverly Seduction by Fashion, London: Demetrion, James. The Hirshhorn Semmes,” Espoarte, June/July Thames & Hudson, pp. 103–07 Collects: Recent Acquisitions, “The Bong Show,” Time Out New Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture York, January18–24 2001 Garden, Washington, D.C. McCormick, Carlo. “The Bong “Beverly Semmes”, The Village (exhibition catalogue) Show: New York Artists Hit the Voice, March 20 Martinez, Rosa. On Life, Beauty, Pipe”, High Times, April Bal, Mieke; Fruchtl and Translations and Other Zimmermann. “Mise en Scene”, Difficulties,5th International 2006 Ästhetik der Inszenierung. Istanbul Biennial (exhibition “Itinerary: Neuberger Museum of Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, catalogue) Art,” Sculpture, December pp. 201–202 Princenthal, Nancy. “Semmes at Harper, Glenn, and Moyer, Johnson, Ken. “Beverly Semmes”, Michael Klein and Whitney Twylene, Eds. A Sculpture The New York Times, Friday, Museum at Phillip Morris,” Art Reader: Contemporary Sculpture March 9 in America, Feb., p.107 Since 1980, (ISC Press) Levi Strauss, David. “Beverly Myers, Holly. “Crystal, chiffon, Semmes”, Artforum, May, p. 178 1996 ceramics at play,” Los Angeles Camhi, Leslie. “Big: Beverly Times, May 26 Semmes”, Village Voice,

Page 17 November 12, p. 96 1993 Ferguson, Bruce. Beverly Semmes, Butler, Connie. “Terrible Beauty Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Enormity of Space”, Art (exhibition catalogue) & Text, No. 46, September, Glueck, Grace. “Beverly Semmes, pp. 60–65 ‘She Moves’ and ‘Big Silver’”, Feldman, Melissa. “Beverly The New York Times, Semmes” I.C.A., University of November 8, p. C23 Penn, Philadelphia McFarland, Terence. “The Big, the Kazanjian, Dodie. “What’s Up Bad, and the Beautiful”, With Art?, Interview, August, Interview, June, pp. 92–94 pp. 84–89 Smith, Roberta. “Fine Art and Smith, Roberta. “Review/Art”, The Outsiders: Attacking the New York Times, Jan 15, p. C30 Barriers”, The New York Times, February 2, p. C18 1992 Smith, Roberta. “Handmade Cameron, Dan. “Don’t Look Now”, Readymades”, The New York Frieze, Issue #3, pp. 4–8 Times, March 1, p. C20 Faust, Gretchen. New York in Viso, Olga. Beverly Semmes: Review, March, p. 80 Directions, Hirshhorn Museum Kalin, Tom. “Plastic Fantastic Lover and Sculpture Garden, (Object A)”, Artforum, January, (exhibition brochure) p. 102 Liu, Catherine. “Beverly Semmes”, 1995 Artforum, December, pp. 2–3, 80 Tucker, Marcia. Bad Girls, New Museum, (exhibition catalogue) 1991 “Chicago, Options 50: Beverly Phillips, Patricia. “Beverly Semmes,” Flash Art, December, Semmes”, Artforum, November, p. 43 p. 109 Cruz, Amada. “Options 50: Semmes, Beverly. Beverly Semmes. Beverly Semmes”, Museum of Sculpture Center, (artist’s book) Contemporary Art (exhibition Smith, Roberta. “Beverly Semmes, brochure) Sculpture Center”, New York Gumpert, Lynne. Material Dreams, Times, September 18, C20 Takashimaya Gallery (exhibition Liu, Catherine. Plastic Fantastic catalogue) Lover (Object A), Blum Helman Warehouse, (exhibition 1994 catalogue) “Beverly Semmes”, Blind Spot, Fall, Smith, Roberta. “Plastic Fantastic pp. 41–42 Lover (Object A)”, New York Frankel, David; McEvilley, Thomas; Times, November 1, p. C16 McGonagle, Declan. From Beyond the Pale: Art and Artists 1990 at the Edge of Consensus, Irish Butler, Cornelia. Beverly Semmes, Museum of Modern Art, p. 79 Artists Space, (exhibition Kimmelman, Michael. “Art in brochure) Review”, New York Times, Faust, Gretchen. “New York in June 24, p. C17 Review”, Arts Magazine, Sept, Panicelli, Ida. Beverly Semmes, p.103 Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, (exhibition brochure) Smith, Roberta. “A Raucous Caucus of Feminists Being Bad”, The New York Times, January 21, p. C5

Page 18 Feminist Responsibility Project, (detail) 2011. Fabric, crystal, table, chairs, puzzle, performers. 7.5 x 30 20 ft.

Page 19 Carwash, 2011. Ink on paper. 10.75 x 7 in.

Page 20 Acknowledgments Colophon This exhibition marks a turning Authors: Ingrid Schaffner, Senior point for Rowan University Art Curator, Institute of Contemporary Gallery in its mission to bring high Art, Philadelphia quality, contemporary art to South Jersey and the Rowan University Dr. Catherine Lui, Director, UCI community. This is the first multi- Humanities Center, Film & Media medium exhibition created specifi- Studies, School of Humanities, cally for the Rowan University Art University of California, Irvine Gallery that includes performance, video, sculpture, and original Design: Kloepfer–Ramsey drawings by the artist. Over a year in the making it could not have Fine art photography: Aaron Igler been possible without the support, generosity, and encouragement The models in the photo docu- of the following individuals: Dr. mentation are Rowan University Jon Robert Cart, Dean, College of Fine and Performing Arts students: Fine and Performing Arts, Susan Nicolette Absil and Jenn Knoblock Bowman, Department of Art Chair, Dr. Andrew Hottle, Art History, Rowan University Art Gallery Dr. Fred Adelson, Art History, interns: Nicolette Absil, Ze Chen, Dr. Deb Miller, Art History, Danielle Cook, Josh Moskowitz, Ingrid Schaffner, Senior Curator, Armando Ramirez, and Joanne Institute of Contemporary Art, Song Philadelphia, and Dr. Catherine Lui, Director, UCI Humanities Center, Additional funding was provided Film & Media Studies, School by The New Jersey State Council of Humanities, University of of the Arts and from the College of California, Irvine. Fine and Performing Arts. The New Jersey State Council on the Arts is Special thanks to Professor a division of the NJ Department of Melanie Stewart for collaborating State. It receives funding in direct with the artist and directing the appropriations from the State of New exhibition performance workshop. Jersey through a dedicated Hotel/ And finally thanks to the student Motel Occupancy fee and grants performers from the departments from the National Endowment for of art, theatre and dance for the the Arts. professionalism that you demon- strated in the work: Jacque Abeltin, Marissa Cannon, Jenn Consoli, Kristyn Czapkowski, Alexis DiSpensa, Joanna Drzaszcz, Kaitlin Kemp, Katie Knoblock, Catherine Kustra, Andrea Krapevka, Sarah Lamont, Angelina LaSala, Ashley Oldakowski, Natasha Olivero, Alex Reggi, Becca Stirner, Emily Tomasello, Kate Verde, Nicolette Rowan University Art Gallery Walker, and Jessica Zellers. 201 Mullica Hill Road Glassboro, NJ 08028 —Mary Salvante, Curator, Gallery www.rowan.edu/fpa/artgallery and Exhibitions Program Director (856) 256-4521

Page 21 March 29– May 14, 2011

Rowan University Art Gallery

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