"The Feminist Figure" at Forum

"The Feminist Figure" brought together works by 22 contemporary women artists in an exhibition organized to coincide with the Feminist Art Project, a nationwide endeavor to promote the inclusion of women in culture. The show comprised figurative works executed in a variety of mediums by well recognized and less familiar artists. Although all of the pieces represented or made reference to the female body, the title itself carried little meaning, and curator Marcia G. Yerman's declaration that, in her selection of artworks, "a fuller awareness of humanity is shared" was misleading. In fact, the works did not offer broad, universal statements about either humanity or feminism. Notwithstanding its problematic conceptual premise, however, the show presented many strong individual pieces that were a pleasure to behold.

Introducing the exhibition with wit, cleverness and artistic heft, Kathleen Gilje's Linda Nochlin in Manet's Bar at the Folies-Bergere (2006) replicates that masterpiece in virtuoso painterly brushwork and dazzling visual effects--except that the sage confidence of venerable art historian Linda Nochlin, champion of women artists, replaces the weary resignation of Manet's barmaid. Susan Hauptman's luminous self-portrait in charcoal on paper (2003) is mesmerizing and austere. At once worldly and otherworldly, the artist literally and figuratively bares herself--not unlike Jane Lund and Diane Edison in their respectively bold and proud depictions of themselves aging (2004 and 2001)--as she returns the gazes of those who scrutinize her naked torso, the lines in her face and the single tuft of hair on her head.

Elements of exoticism, historicization and spirituality were manifest throughout the show. Julie Heffernan's Self-Portrait as Infanta Maria Teresa Dreaming Madame de Sade (1999), referring to Velazquez, is as visually delectable and brazen as the title suggests. So too is Irene Hardwicke Olivieri's Little house in my heart (2006), which combines intimate and revealing passages of text with a naive and symbolic figurative style to represent the cycle of life and death and the affinities between women and nature. Other striking works along these lines were Kiki Smith's ethereal drawing of a reclining naked girl/woman on whose pubic area lies an outstretched bird (Untitled, 1999); Lesley Dill's mystical portrait, on dark-stained fabric, of a woman with vapor flowing out of her mouth and down the center of her body, Visionary (1995); and Holly Lane's landscape allegory, One of the Twelve Unchronicled Deeds of St. Sapia (2000), filtered through northern Renaissance painting. Lena Cronqvist's stoneware-and-glass Girl in a Glass Bubble (2004) and Esther Shimazu's clay Speckled Mask (2001) channeled ancient cross-legged sacred statuary and ceramic figures, respectively, in their forthright representations. Such was the rich variety found among these commanding works by and of self-assured women.

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