Introducing Losing Yourself in the 21st Century

Losing Yourself in the 21st Century is a unique curatorial project that culminates in two gallery exhibitions: Georgia State University Welch School of Art & Design Gallery (October 1 – November 19, 2009) and Maryland Art Place (February 4 – March 27, 2010).

The exhibition features new work by twelve U.S.-based women artists selected through an online curatorial process. Project curators were particularly interested in time-based, interactive, and performative media that explores gender and “self” in the 21st century.

Concept

Losing Yourself in the 21st Century is premised on the notion that contemporary media, information systems and consumer culture foster flexible and diverse notions of self and community while simultaneously, and increasingly, regulating new spheres of personal life and conduct. By producing spaces in which individualism and personal choices are simultaneously espoused and curtailed, this network of cultural discourse blurs traditional distinctions between private and public, self-empowerment and self-surveillance, consumerism and activism. Our exhibition explores this phenomenon through the perspective of emerging women artists.

Contemporary perceptions of identity are shaped not only by mass media and consumer culture but as well by feminist discourse and women’s social and economic gains. How, we ask, do emerging artists perceive this complex discursive terrain? How, in turn, do they negotiate it? How have their diverse experiences and backgrounds equipped them to engage in questions of identity and self-expression in the new millennium? What currency, if any, do feminist politics have for them in our so-called postfeminist culture?

Process

Losingyourself.com is a virtual platform and blogspace for U.S. women (and women-identified) artists, curators and art professional exploring issues of identity and subjectivity in the 21st century. We invited postings that engage the title’s theme of a “loss of self” from any perspective, but were especially interested in projects that addressed the intersection of new media technologies and gendered subjectivity.

Mirroring new media art practices, and particularly the central role of the Internet in social networking today, we used this site to establish relationships with emerging women artists across the country and to select work for the gallery exhibition. In turn, we envisioned the space itself as an extension of a physical gallery.

We invited artists to present their work as a way to generate creative opportunities and to share resources via the Internet. It is our intention to maintain this website through 2010. Archives of the project will then be transferred to mdartplace.org, the website of Maryland Art Place, Baltimore.

Curators

Susan Richmond, contemporary art historian and Assistant Professor of Art History in the GSU Welch School

Cathy Byrd, Executive Director, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore

Jillian Hernandez, Women’s and Gender Studies graduate student at Rutgers University and former Curatorial Associate at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami

Context

Losing Yourself capitalizes on the recent resurgence of interest in women’s artistic practices by museum and academic institutions. Notable examples include the large-scale national exhibitions, WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at LA MOCA and New York’s PS 1 (2007-08), and Global Feminisms at the Brooklyn Museum (2007); the 2007 “Feminist Future” Conference at MOMA and the 2006 Annual National Women’s Caucus for Art conference in Boston. A number of smaller venues across the U.S. have also mapped out new terrain in feminist art and curatorial practices, including the museums at Mills College (We Interrupt Your Program, 2008) and Spelman College (Cinema Remixed and Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970, 2007-08). Located in Atlanta, Spelman presented an important precedent for Losing Yourself.

Despite this promising resurgence, women artists continue to be underrepresented in national art exhibitions, this despite the large numbers of female students choosing art careers. Since the Welch Gallery is located in the heart of a public, urban university, it is ideally situated for outreach to such students, as well as to girls, women artists and professionals in the larger metropolitan community. Losingyourself.com will serve as an equally important tool for national outreach  and for ongoing conversations about young women and the contemporary art world.

Featured Events

Baltimore 2010
Maryland Art Place
Exhibition: February 4 – March 27
February 4: Opening Events
4:00 pm LY Artists and Curators Present the Project
5:00 – 8:00 pm Reception and Gallery Talk

March 6: Contemporary Art and the Internet
2:00-5:00 pm
Stacia Yeapanis Talk | Copyright Workshop with Maryland Lawyers for the Arts

March 18: Susan Lee-Chun Artist Talk and Public Art Demonstration
6:00-8:00 pm

June 23: Lee-Chun’s public performance of Let’s Suzer-cise! in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor
mdartplace.org

ATLANTA 2009
GSU Welch School Gallery
Exhibition : October 1-November 19

October 1
Opening Talks with Losing Yourself Artists

November 12-15
National Women’s Studies Association Conference, Atlanta
The presentation of Losing Yourself in Atlanta will coincide with the annual conference of the National Women’s Studies Association. To mark this confluence of events, the multi-faceted educational program will include curatorial lectures, film screenings, public performances and talks by participating artists.

Documentation

This site will be maintained through 2010 as an open-ended repository of posted art and ideas. A virtual exhibition is posted on line with downloadable artists’ profiles and curatorial statements. An archive of the project will be maintained on the website of Maryland Art Place: mdartplace.org.

Funding

MAP | Donors and members of Maryland Art Place, along with the Maryland State Arts Council, Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, the National Endowment for the Artssupport the MAP gallery exhibition, 2010 virtual exhibition and website, and establishment of Losing Yourself project archives on the MAP site.

GSU | Funding for initial development of the project and website, as well as the 2009 presentation at GSU, was provided by the Georgia State University College of Arts and Sciences Center for Collaborative and Interdisciplinary Arts, the GSU Student Activity Fee Fund and Fulton County Arts Council.