A dozen contemporary artists are presented in this exhibition of women whose work, while broadly feminist, is neither didactic nor loaded with female imagery.
     Artists who worked outside the women’s organizations of the late 1960s and 70s, these women nonetheless produced challenging, innovative work that explored history, identity and shifting perceptions of bodily forms and gestures.
     Independent Visions/Feminist Perspectives will be on view at the Mishkin Gallery from Friday, Nov. 21 through Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008. Opening reception Thursday, Nov. 20, 6 - 8 pm. Free and Open to the Public.
     As a group, Nina Yankowitz, Susan Crile, Cynthia Eardley, Ellen K. Levy, Judy Pfaff and Cindy Sherman and the other artists in this exhibition represent the pluralism and hybrid styles that prevail in today’s art world.  Along with the use of mixed media, the artists’ subjects range from the distinct and individual – Ida Applebroog’s “photogenetic” portraits of Tobias – to the panoramic – Susan Crile’s powerful Firestorm, a depiction of the oil field fires of Kuwait at the end of the Persian Gulf War.
     The largest and most overtly feminist work included in this exhibition is Nina Yankowitz’s Buried Treasures/Secrets in the Sciences. This ambitious piece is a reclamation of the contributions of women scientists through the ages, women whose work has gone unacknowledged, sometimes for centuries.  From a glass test tube, flow their stories, floating on fictive liquid mercury, while images of polytope animations hover inside and above a glass house structure.
     Cynthia Eardley’s figurative sculptures are memorable for their portrayal of the essential mystery of the human face and the psychological complexity these faces present to the viewer.  A group of five individuals is portrayed here, including Witness, Broken Man, New York Girl, James, and an Untitled woman with a slender neck.  A range of emotions can be inferred from the lovely and smiling New York Girl to the shattered visage of the Broken Man.