Gender Battle

"Gender Battle. Lectures, theatre and debates about the rules of gender, sexuality and the impact of feminism in the art of the seventies"
25 to 27 September 2007


Galician Center for
Contemporary Art
Santiago de Compostela
Galicia (Spain)

http://www.cgac.org

The exhibition Gender Battle, curated by Juan Vicente Aliaga, will be opened in the Galician Center for Contemporary Art on September 13th and around it CGAC presents "Gender Battle. Lectures, theatre and debates about the rules of gender, sexuality and the impact of feminism in the art of the seventies". The goal of organising this cenference is to take on, as far as is possible, a whole spectrum of subjects and problems related to certain fields of feminist movements, the incorporation of the concept of gender as a category to be analysed and the social questioning that started to take force in the seventies related to the barriers between what is considered femenine or masculine. Three intensive days have therefore been organised with three lectures and three round table discussions in which artists, teachers, and activists with an interest in the subject will present to the public of Santiago their point of view about the complex questions of gender and how it materialises in daily life and in art.

25 September, 17:00
In the first lecture, María Laura Rosa, a teacher from Buenos Aires, will take a look at the specifics of art and feminism in four countries in Latin America, namely Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Mexico. In some ways it will be a closer look at the valuable contributions of different practices in art and cinema (María Luisa Bemberg in particular) in relation to social proposals for equality in turbulent times and contexts for politics.

The round table involves Martha Rosler (United States), Sanja Ivekovic (Croatia) and Ulrike Rosenbach (Germany), and aims to share not only the four artists' individual experiences that gave rise to works of great signficance in the seventies, but also to show the diversity of artistic options and different ways of approaching feminism.

26 September, 17:00
The talk by French essayist Elisabeth Lebovici will be focused on a highly symbolic year in France -- 1975, when various different feminist groups came to light and both collective and individual artistic problems with different ideologies arose. The specifics of the Womens' Liberation Movement will be analysed together with the rise of homosexual groups that criticised heterosexist orthodoxy.

Present at the round table will be Carmen Navarrete, Jesús Martínez Oliva, Chelo Matesanz and Assumpta Bassas. The goal is to carry out a critical analysis of the art linked to matters of gender that existed in Spain in the seventies, based on the professional and research experience of four Spanish University lecturers (from the Universities of Valencia, Murcia, Pontevedra and Barcelona).

27 September, 17:00
Amelia Jones' talk is based on the relative surprise that the recent interest in feminism shown by the market and art galleries and centres has caused in this North American essayist, who is also a lecturer at the University of Manchester. This is in marked contrast to the usual disdain shown over the decades by institutions to art that is openly feminist.

Talking at the round table will be Beatriz Suárez Briones, Raquel Osborne and one of the main figures of the feminist movement in Spain, Empar Pineda. They will look back on the struggle for emancipation and equality of rights and the role that feminism played in Spain towards the end of the dictatorship under General Franco and in the transition to democracy.

If you want more information about exhibition and lectures, please contact:

Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea
Rúa Valle Inclán s/n
15704 Santiago de Compostela
Galicia -Spain
Tel: +34 981 546 619
cgac.prensa@xunta.es
http://www.cgac.org

Book Arts Newsletter

Every month/two months, The Book Arts Newsletter is published at the CFPR, Edited by Sarah Bodman and available to anyone on our Book Arts Mailing list as a 'hard copy'.

To supplement the publication, we have also made all back copies (up to the current issue at any given time) available as downloadable, print-quality pdf files, which can also be simply read in any web browser that has a basic Acrobat Reader plug in.

Newsletter for August - September 2007: Issue 36

http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/banlists.htm

Eliza Younghusband

The National Library of Australia is pleased to announce it was the successful bidder for an album containing two original pictures from the ill-fated Burke and Wills Expedition of 1860–1861.

The album, which sold at this evening's Bonhams & Goodman auction in Melbourne for a hammer price of $240,000, will shed new light on a great Australian story.

The two drawings in the album both dated 1861, are by William Hodgkinson, a literary editor with The Age, who joined the Burke and Wills expedition at Swan Hill in 1860.

The works depict early European exploration and the conflict between explorers and Aborigines. The pictures were presented by Hodgkinson to Miss Eliza Younghusband, daughter of a prominent South Australian pastoralist, and kept by her in an exquisite album of mementos.

Hodgkinson was a member of the expedition supply party, led by an experienced bushman, William Wright. While Burke and a smaller party headed to Cooper's Creek, Wright made slow progress from Menindee to Kooliattoo Creek. Here he temporarily left the expedition members Beckler and Becker. Hodgkinson travelled on with the stronger members of Wright's party to the Bulla River.



Hodgkinson's dramatic watercolour Bulla depicts a tense moment of conflict. It shows the armed expeditioners, their rifles smoking, in an improvised stockade facing a large group of advancing Aborigines armed with clubs and spears. Unlike other colonial pictures of armed encounters between Europeans and Aborigines, it shows both sides as equally resolute.

The other pencil sketch, Koorliattoo, shows the desolate landscape and the camp where the weaker members of the expedition were left.

Hodgkinson survived the expedition and found his way to Adelaide where he presented the drawings to Miss Younghusband. The album also contains a love poem by Hodgkinson, drawings, watercolours, poems, prose, cuttings and keepsakes which are a window into mid-19th century life in Adelaide.

The album remained in the Younghusband family until 1995 when it was sold to a private collector for $10,000. At the time it was not recognised for its connection to the Burke and Wills expedition.

The National Library already has a number of Burke and Wills items including the diaries of William John Wills 23 April – 28 June 1861(at http://www.nla.gov.au/epubs/wills/ ) and John O'Hara Burke 16 December 1860 – 20 January 1861. The Library's pictures collection contains works depicting aspects of the expedition by William Strutt and Nicholas Chevalier, as well as works by Hodgkinson from a later expedition.

http://www.nla.gov.au/pressrel/burkeandwills.html

Tate’s Online Events Archive

Tate’s Online Events Archive provides a growing resource of artist talks, performances and cultural debate.

Currently there are over 600 hours of audio and video available.

Archives are updated and available to view online within two weeks of the live event.

http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/archive/