Art & Films

Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art from the Kaplan & Levi Collection
January 26 to April 22 | Pleasant T. Rowland Galleries, Chazen Museum.

The exhibition comprises approximately fifty pieces.  Organized both geographically and thematically, the exhibition explores the dramatic revolution that began in the mid-twentieth century, when artists from numerous cultural groups began to adapt traditional artistic practices—songs, ceremonies, body art, and bark or rock paintings—for audiences outside their families or communities. This transition coincided with a broad shift in the reception of Aboriginal art, as museums in Australia and beyond began to actively collect and exhibit contemporary work by indigenous Australian artists. Though rooted in age-old cultural forms, these powerfully immediate works by women and men now occupy a singular and increasingly prominent place in global contemporary art

• Join us at the Chazen Museum, Thursday, April 12, 2018, 6–8 PM for Docent-led tours of Ancestral Modern and works by women in the collection. Meet in the Mead Witter Lobby.
• In collaboration with this exhibition, at 2:15 on Friday, April 13th in the Chazen Auditorium we offer the plenary: Our Bodies, Our Land: Rainbow Serpent, Dreaming, Corroborree and Aboriginal Feminism (See agenda)

The ART of Infertility: Visualizing Voices of Reproductive Loss, 2nd Floor, Pyle Center, April 8-May 30, 2018.

The ART of Infertility exhibit portrays intimate moments of reproductive loss that have led patients to create. The exhibit reveals the often unseen and everyday encounters of infertility told from the perspectives of infertile individuals who have suddenly found themselves confronting unseen paths of family-building. For some in the exhibit, infertility is a disease to be conquered. For others, infertility is social construction that does not define them. Other stories represent more of a liminality, individuals still processing: their diagnosis, their next step of action, and their definition of family. Assembled together, the exhibit portrays the spectrums of living with infertility.

• Curated by Maria Novotny, Assistant Professor / Co-Director, The ART of Infertility, English, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh / The ART of Infertility; and Elizabeth Walker, Co-Director, The ART of Infertility.
• The curators will also be presenting in concurrent Session 2J, Friday, 11:45-12:45

Materials and Meaning, 1st Floor, Pyle Center, April 8-14, 2018

This exhibition focuses on the artworks of contemporary artists who deliberately choose to work with materials that resonate with personal, social, and cultural significance, and that are central to the interpretation and meaning of the work. The curators consider artists’ use of culturally laden substances and processes that materially embody bodily experience and memory, and connections between body and earth, both gendered as ‘female’ in the history of western art.

• Curated by Melanie Herzog, Professor of Art History, Art Department, Edgewood College; and Susan Messer, Professor of Art, Department of Art and Design. University of Wisconsin- Whitewater
• The curators will be presenting in concurrent session 4C, Saturday, 10:30-11:30

Art and Activism: A History of Feminist Posters from South Asia, digital art exhibition, 4W Summit Marketplace in the AT&T Lounge, Pyle Center, April 13-14, 9:00-5:00

Professor Christine Garlough (University of Wisconsin, Madison), Professor Manisha Shelat (MICA, Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad), Olakh (led by Nimesha Desai), Sahiyar (led by Trupi Shah), and Jagaran Nepal (led by Sharmila Karki) and a cohort of UW graduate and undergraduate students worked collaboratively to create a digital archive of South Asian feminist posters. This South Asian Feminist Political Poster Collection is housed through the University of Wisconsin Library system (http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/GenderStudies). These posters – often deteriorating and inaccessible to audiences outside of the localities in which they were produced – detail an important history of grassroots feminist activism regarding social issues such as sexual and domestic violence, women’s health, education reform, and legal inequities. With this support from a Vilas Grant from the University of Wisconsin Madison we have sought to safeguard, translate, catalogue, and publicize the existence of these artifacts that combine art and activism. Further, this group is in the process of developing a website (http://safaa.womenstudies.wisc.edu/) that provides a cross-disciplinary curriculum linked to the digital archive for activists, teachers and researchers. These lesson plans may be used to facilitate students’ education around global feminism, grassroots activism, and transnational issues facing women worldwide. This work is meant to facilitate outreach and fulfill a commitment to University of Wisconsin Madison’s Wisconsin Idea by making these materials available to a local and global audience of people who are interested in women’s issues, human rights, and policy reform.

Celebratory launch of Somos Latinas DIgital History Project followed by a New Publications Reception: Join us to learn about and celebrate the launch of the Somos Latinas DIgital History Project, and the publication of the book, Somos Latinas: Voices of Wisconsin Latina Activists, Pyle Center Auditorium, Friday, April 13th, 5:00 followed by the a celebration of recent publications by several of our 4W Summit presenters at the New Publications Reception with author book signings, featuring Somos Latinas: Voices of Wisconsin Latina Activists, and other new books by 4W Summit participants.  Room of Ones’ Own Feminist Bookstore will be on hand to help you get your books!

The Raging Grannies will sing us out of the conference at 5:30 PM on Saturday, April 14th.  The Raging Grannies of Madison, Wisconsin began as a project of the Madison branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), first singing to the crowds of Madison WI anti-war protesters in the fall of 2003.  The Raging Grannies International website “We are totally non-violent, believe in only peaceful protest (with lots of laughter), work for the ‘many not the few’ … and see our work as the spreading green branches of a great tree, rising up to provide shelter and nourishment for those who will come after us.” That’s true — but we Grannies also want to have fun, refuse to be silenced, and will sing out against those things that harm the planet we will leave to our grandkids. You can find more about how to join the Raging Grannies of Madison here: http://raginggrannies.madisonwi.us/about.htm

Check out more Art in the Market-Place througout Friday and Saturday

Our vendor room will have informational tables about organizations and projects of interest to our participants, and A Room of Ones Own Feminist Bookstore selling books during listed hours.  Here are some of the vendors that feature the arts:

• Wisconsin Without Borders Marketplace, this student group that grew out of the UW-Madison School of Human Ecology (SoHE) will be selling globally created wares that are a part of their mission to serve people not profit as students collaborating to empower artisans around the world in sharing their stories and selling their products.  Their vision as an organization: “On a global scale, UW student and faculty contributions will result in empowered artisans and microenterprises with economic autonomy and global social and professional connections ultimately contributing improved individual well-being and the well-being of the overall community. On a local scale, UW students and faculty will develop avenues in Madison to share our artisan partners’ stories, sell their products, and apply our learnings to real-world applications”
• Nagah Sedki Ahmed Abdelnaeem, Artist, Egyptian Syndicate of Fine Arts, and Dr. Manal Lofty Kabesh, National Center for Egyptian Educational Research and Development/National Council for Women, will have a display of fine arts and Nubian handcrafts in the Vendor Room, and they are presenting in concurrent Session 4B, Friday 10:30-11:30