Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In this vividly illustrated narrative, author Sabra Moore chronicles twenty-two years of her life and interactions with other women artists finding ways to create politically and personally meaningful artworks, exhibitions, protests, and institutions in response to war, government corruption, struggles for reproductive freedom, and racial tensionall while fighting for greater representation and opportunities for women in the art world.
Gracefully mixing bold historical accounts, poignant personal narratives, and nuanced introspection about writing, identity, family, and dreams, Moore illuminates a breadth of women's struggles and triumphs. She writes of her volunteer work in New York City's first legal abortion clinic, her own nearly fatal incomplete abortion in Guinea, and the abuse she experienced in a relationship with her former art teacher. She narrates her work organizing protests against the Museum of Modern Art, creating politically charged exhibitions with her peers in New York and beyond, and publishing a collaborative feminist art journal with the Heresies Collective.
The book is printed in full color and illustrated throughout with 950 images of the art, artmaking, posters, news media, and photographic images of these activist women artists.
Sabra Moore is an artist, writer, and activist. After moving to New York in 1966, she became a leading creative force within the feminist art movement. Moore's artistic and political involvement was showcased in the feature length film The Heretics (2011). Her newest works are showing MayAugust 2016 in an exhibition at the New Mexico State Capital Rotunda in Sante Fe, and her most recent solo museum show, Out of the Woods, was at the Harwood Museum in Taos in 2007. She authored and illustrated the trade book Petroglyphs: Ancient Language/ Sacred Art (1997), and her artist's books can be found in several museum collections, including the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
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Synopsis
This abundantly illustrated personal narrative takes readers through twenty-two years of activism in the women's art movements in New York City during a period of great cultural change. Author Sabra Moore vividly recounts life in this era of social upheaval in which women artists responded to war, racial tension and reconciliation, cultural and aesthetic inequality, and struggles for reproductive freedom. We learn intimately how she and fellow women artists found ways to create politically and personally effective art works, exhibitions, actions, and institutions.
The book features Moore's involvement in pivotal art organizations of this time and her own development as an artist, counterbalanced with her connections to family in rural East Texas and friends in New Mexico. Moore was a member of the Heresies Collective, an influential feminist activist group, became editor of their art and politics journal Heresies, and was president of the NYC/Women's Caucus for Art. She helped coordinate and curate many of the earliest large-scale exhibitions of women artists in NYC, including Views by Women Artists (1982), and the collaborative shows Reconstruction Project and Connections Project/Conexus. Moore was a principle organizer of the 1984 demonstration against MoMA over their lack of inclusion of women artists and was a member of various groundbreaking collaborative arts groups in the 1970s, including Atlantic Gallery and WAR (Women Artists in Revolution).
While Openings is an historical narrative of women artists' actions, organizations, and ideas, it also candidly describes their periods of challenge, including the death of sculptor Ana Mendieta and the indictment of her husband and the author's own attempted murder by her former art teacher.
The book is illustrated throughout by a treasure of 950 color and black & white images of the art from this momentous period a valuable collection that is concurrently being archived by Barnard College along with papers, letters, show cards, posters, original artworks, and other documents.
This eye-opening book includes forewords by renowned art critic Lucy Lippard and poet/activist Margaret Randall.
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Synopsis
An account of the women's art movement in New York City from 1970 to 1992 and how these women created politically and personally effective art works, exhibitions, actions, and institutions This abundantly illustrated personal narrative takes readers through twenty-two years of activism in the women's art movements in New York City during a period of great cultural change. Author Sabra Moore vividly recounts life in this era of social upheaval in which women artists responded to war, racial tension and reconciliation, cultural and aesthetic inequality, and struggles for reproductive freedom. We learn intimately how she and fellow women artists found ways to create politically and personally effective art works, exhibitions, actions, and institutions. The book features Moore's involvement in pivotal art organizations of this time and her own development as an artist, counterbalanced with her connections to family in rural East Texas and friends in New Mexico. Moore was a member of the Heresies Collective, an influential feminist activist group, became editor of their art and politics journal Heresies, and was president of the NYC/Women's Caucus for Art. She helped coordinate and curate many of the earliest large-scale exhibitions of women artists in NYC, including Views by Women Artists (1982), and the collaborative shows Reconstruction Project and Connections Project/Conexus. Moore was a principle organizer of the 1984 demonstration against MoMA over their lack of inclusion of women artists and was a member of various groundbreaking collaborative arts groups in the 1970s, including Atlantic Gallery and WAR (Women Artists in Revolution). While Openings is an historical narrative of women artists' actions, organizations, and ideas, it also candidly describes their periods of challenge, including the death of sculptor Ana Mendieta and the indictment of her husband and the author's own attempted murder by her former art teacher. The book is illustrated throughout by a treasure of 950 color and black & white images of the art from this momentous period: a valuable collection that is concurrently being archived by Barnard College along with papers, letters, show cards, posters, original artworks, and other documents. This eye-opening book includes forewords by renowned art critic Lucy Lippard and poet/activist Margaret Randall.