|
Pulse of the Twin Cities Login |
|
If you do not have an account yet
Create One.
|
|
|
Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
|
|
|
|
Girls with Guns @ Kellie Rae Theiss Gallery
Wednesday 13 August @ 11:38:36 |
 by Natilee Harren
What if only women were allowed to carry guns? Girls with Guns, currently on display at Kellie Rae Theiss Gallery, uses this provocative question as the theme for a ten-print portfolio combining the work of ten local and national artist-intellectuals. Jenny Schmid organized the portfolio’s production for the April 2003 Southern Graphics, a national printmakers’ conference. The gallery showing, which includes additional works by some of the artists, was curated by Kevin Quandt.
"The Pathetic Death of Machismo" by Jenny Schmid
Besides local artists Alexa Horochowski and Jenny Schmid, the printmakers come from Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois, California, Pennsylvania, and New York. The ten artists are mainly professors who teach printmaking at universities across the United States. Benefiting from the excellent printmaking facilities of their departments, the aritsts’ technically stunning prints can also be read as an encyclopedia of printing approaches: there are screen prints, photo-lithographs, woodcuts, and various hybrids, plus a newly developed technique adopted by Holly Greenberg.
Jenny Schmid uses a florid aesthetic common to turn-of-the-century prints to depict “The Pathetic Death of Machismo.” Alexa Horochowski features one of her sassy storybook cowgirls comfortably waving two pistols in the air, declaring “Viva la revolución.”
The particularly amusing print “Young Mr. Heston” comes from Lisa Bulawsky. A breast motif, line of new female gun owners, and sharpshooter bending over to show us her tattooed buttocks and thong surround the future NRA spokesman as he worriedly ponders what the world is coming to.
Valerie Wallace’s lithograph panel “Below the Belt,“ though not a part of the portfolio, most fitfully addresses the show’s theme with its eye-popping graphics, unconventional combination of materials, and symbolic reference to Rosie the Riveter.
Despite the show’s fascinating theme, few of the artists bother to imagine the long-term results of this policy because they are too obsessed with images of women bearing arms with confidence. One exception, Ruthann Godollei’s “Now Talk,” depicts a sausage-fingered hand that the viewer supposes is female simply because it wears a pink bracelet. Whoever the hand belongs to, the subject remains a gun, implying that violence will continue no matter who holds the weapons. Unfortunately, the other female printmakers could not get past imagining their new gun-toting persona to articulate a more profound answer to Schmid’s query.
It is interesting to see a male perspective from Endi Poskovic, John Lysak, Michael Barnes, and John Hitchcock—who visualizes the predictable protests that would come from believers in traditional gender roles.
Girls with Guns restores printmaking to its political origins, and the works presented by these established and skilled printmakers in their historically satirical and critical medium are worth checking out.
Girls with Guns continues through Aug. 30. Kellie Rae Theiss Gallery. 400 1st Ave. N., Suite 318, Mpls. Open Wed.-Fri. 11-5 p.m.; Sat. 11-4 p.m. or by appointment. 613-339-1094. http://www.theissgallery.com.
|
|
 |
|
|
Comments -
Post Comment |
|
The comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for its content.
NO comments yet! Be the first!
|
|
|
