art@work - NOT ALL THAT GLITTERS IS GOLD: A SELECTION OF WORKS BY WOMEN ARTISTS IN THE MOSQUERA COLLECTION
This is Part I of a three-part collective exhibition, two years in the planning, that celebrates the twenty year anniversary of Art@Work. It showcases paintings, works on paper, sculptures, installations, photographs and video from female artists in the collection. Originally scheduled for December 2019 but delayed by unforeseen circumstances, the exhibition features sixty four artworks, including fourteen videos shown looped on three screens.
The title was inspired by one of Ali Prosch’s pieces in the show Rolling in the Deep, Adele (based on Adele’s Rolling in the Deep by songwriters Adele Lauri Blue Adkins and Paul Richard Epworth). The song’s theme of empowerment is used to highlight the tremendous talent of women artists. The ‘can do, do not underestimate me’ attitude of the song rings clear in the Mosqueras’ admiration of women artists dating from the time they began to collect in 1989. Liza and Arturo have over two thousand artworks by female artists in their collection.
Themes dealing with home, love, sex, identity, innocence, morality, religion, racism, aging, destruction and death are explored in this exhibition via artworks by Dona Altemus, Yanira Collado, Marina Fonts, Maria Lino, Kerry Phillips, Ena Marrero and Frances Trombly that use different skills, techniques and materials traditionally used by women in the home. In this way, their combinations of video, geometric abstraction and wood, fabrics with cardboard of musical LPs, photography overlaid with embroidery and stitching, metal screw and glass assemblage with sewing spools, charcoal inside nylon stockings, and knit yarn, differentiate their creations from their original utilization by women.Elizabeth Cerejido’s autobiographical video and photographs dealing with her mother’s memory loss, which include the sewing machine her mother used in her trade, are haunting reminders of the ravages of illness and old age.
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Images courtesy of Arturo Mosquera
Jen De Nike’s video Happy Endings dispels the fairytale notion of Disney movies for young girls. A similar line of thought is projected by Ali Prosch’s handmade silkscreen print on paper, The Fake from the Real (Medieval Castle). Kristen Thiele’s The End dashes all hope with a stark reality, and Lou Anne Colodny’s construction site animated video on elective cosmetic surgery is an alarming warning on this abused element of contemporary culture.
Harumi Abe’s painting, Yanira Collado’s transfer on stone sculpture, and Connie Llovera’s ceramic sculpture of loss, collide with other-worldly videos by Elizabeth Withstandley and Antonia Wright where the wonder of miracles through hope and possibility, and loss and anger, are respectively expressed. In an enigmatic video I Am My Own Circus, I Am My Own Legend, Christina Pettersson portrays the separation from the natural world where the circus is returned to the wild. And Amalia Caputo’s photographs and video of the artist and her sister in a ghost-like panorama are a haunting portrayal of life’s fragility and the passing of time, while a childhood photograph of the two sisters at night radiate both curiosity and fear in a futuristic world dealing with banishing memories.
Among the many other art works by renowned artists in the exhibition is a video by Odalys Valdivieso, paintings by Consuelo Castañeda and Mary Larsen, and a work on paper by Beatriz Monteavaro, all of which incorporate characters from children’s novels in conjuring a pungent reality surrounding their innocence while growing up. Also a video by Beatriz Monteavaro Antics in the Forbidden Zone conveys a morality tale enacted with miniature action figures. Arlene Berrie and Ana Albertina Delgado’s eerie paintings of romance gone array portray a battle between good and evil. These provide a striking contrast to the beautiful cinematic paintings by Kristen Thiele.
The international scope of the exhibitions is attested by the representation of women artists from across the globe. Part I will boast the participation of 41 artists from ten different countries (Argentina, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Sweden, USA and Venezuela). The artists included in Part I are Harumi Abe, Dona Altemus, Sonia Baez, Arlene Berrie, Margarita Cano, Amalia Caputo, Consuelo Castaneda, Elizabeth Cerejido, Karina Chechik, Yanira Collado, lou anne colodny, Ana Albertina Delgado, Jen DeNike, Naomi Fisher, Marina Font, Elizabeth Huey, Mary Larsen, Maria Lino, Connie Lloveras, Lee Materazzi, Ena Marrero, Beatriz Monteavaro, Charo Oquet, Teresa Ortiz, ,Marta Maria Perez Bravo, Christina Pettersson, Kerry Phillips, Vickie Pierre, Liliana Porter, Ali Prosch, Yolanda Sanchez, TM Sisters, Alexia Stamatiou, Irene Szabadics, Kristen Thiele, Frances Trombly, Odalis Valdivieso, Michelle Weinberg, Annie Wharton, Elizabeth Withstandley and Antonia Wright.
The exhibition will be on viewthrough December 19, 2021
