arts & entertainment
Viva La Femme!
!Women, Art Revolution, screening at the DFT, is a film history
of feminist art whose subjects are primarily Jewish.
Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer
L
ynn Hershman Leeson has
expressed her feminist ideas artis-
tically through many media —
drawing, photography, sculpture, perfor-
mance, installation, interactive computer,
net-based media and film.
When she started filming the recollec-
tions and comments of artists and others
associated with the art world 40 years
ago, she didn't know she eventually would
turn their remarks into a film, !Women
Art Revolution, and that it would serve to
document history.
The cinema idea came decades later,
and the artist's directorial results, incor-
porating art and archival footage, will
be shown Aug. 19-21 at the Detroit Film
Theatre in the Detroit Institute of Arts.
"I wanted to keep a record of what was
going on," explains Hershman Leeson,
whose own artistry is self-taught. "I
wasn't a filmmaker when I started, but
later on, I became a filmmaker and real-
ized how important this material was.
"I had borrowed a camera, learned how
to use it and shot interviews in my living
room. Eventually, I had to make it all into
a film."
!Women Art Revolution starts with roots
in the 1960s as people were protesting the
Vietnam War and civil inequalities and
moves through the 1970s and beyond to
address later issues, showing protest and
activism as expressed through art.
Among the people featured are Jewish
artists Miranda July (nee Grossinger), Judy
Chicago, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger,
Ingrid Sischy, Carolee Schneemann and
Miriam Schapiro, among other ground-
;
breaking figures including the Guerilla
Girls, an anonymous group of feminist
artists devoted to fighting against sexism
in the visual arts, who don gorilla masks
to keep their identities hidden.
The portrayal of the 20th-century icons
pulls together the fight to break down bar-
riers facing women in society in general
as well as in the art world in particular
and has a strong score by Sleater-Kinney's
Carrie Brownstein.
"The artists I interviewed were people I
knew," explains Hershman Leeson, chair of
the film department at San Francisco Art
Institute. "I think they did it because they
trusted me.
"Everybody knew I didn't make films
then, and they didn't know what was going
to happen. They just did it anyway."
The late Marcia Tucker, for instance,
is memorialized telling about the dis-
crimination she experienced looking for
work in arts administration and what led
to her founding of the New Museum of
Contemporary Art in New York.
"Ninety percent of the women in the
film are Jewish, but I didn't realize that
until I put it together:' says Hershman
Leeson, 70. Brought up in an Orthodox
home in Cleveland, she has eased her
observance. "In some ways, being
Orthodox and an artist seemed contradic-
tory, but I couldn't do anything else.
"I believe I went on to do things that
normal people wouldn't do because they're
taught not to do the things I do. I think it's
an advantage not to be taught. I learned
film through trial and error."
Hershman Leeson's early drawings,
watercolors and collages included integrat-
ed images of humans and machines. Early
sculpture showcased heads with wax, wigs
and cosmetics.
"I've always been an artist,
and I liked sculpture because of
the ability of seeing something
from all sides," she says. "I want-
ed to expand into larger audi-
ences, and that was the impetus
for moving out of sculpture'
As Hershman Leeson worked
at creating new forms of expres- Lynn Hershman Leeson: "Ninety percent of the
sion, she sought outlets through women in the film are Jewish, but I didn't realize
galleries, festivals and competi- that until I put it together."
tions.
"In the film, I show a lot of
of California-Berkeley. "It fits into the
my work done in the 1970s that had been
trajectory of my video First Person, Plural,
rejected at first:' she says. "That work pre-
which is about individuals and culture."
dates what other artists had been credited
Hershman Leeson likes to work on two
with doing. When people found out I did it or three projects simultaneously. With
a decade earlier, it became very valuable.
current exhibitions, she is preparing for a
"When I was doing it, I couldn't get
retrospective in Germany and the start of
anyone to look at it. That took time.
a scripted science-fiction film.
Ultimately, selling a lot of my work paid
"I like that !Women Art Revolution is
for the film."
really ongoing," she says. "People can go
Hershman Leeson, known for creat-
to the W.A.R. site, womenartrevolution.
ing the first interactive laserdisk artwork
com , and do things [connected] to watch-
(Lorna), holds many prestigious awards
ing the film. It didn't just end, and that's
for her pioneering ventures.
important.
She has been recognized with the ZKM
"The unifying message is for artists to
Media Arts Award, the Golden Nica for
keep doing their work. Younger artists can
interactive arts at Ars Electronica, an Alfred see where their history comes from, and
P. Sloan Foundation Award for her film
they may not have known that otherwise.
Teknolust, the Seattle Art Museum's Anne
"The message for men is about equality.
Gerber Award and the Cyberstar Award.
Women have a long way to go to achieve
Among the institutions holding her
that."
work are the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art, the Walker Art Center in
!Women Art Revolution will be
Minneapolis and the Hess Collection in
screened 7 p.m. Friday-Saturday and
California.
2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 19-21, at the
"!Women Art Revolution has a lot of
Detroit Film Theatre in the Detroit
coherence with work I've done,' explains
Institute of Arts. $6.60-$7.50. (313)
Hershman Leeson, who holds a master's
833-4005; tickets.dia.org .
degree in art criticism from the University
ews
5
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Nate Bloom
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sak. I Special to the Jewish News
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New Flicks
Opening Friday, Aug.19, are Conan the
visa Barbarian, Fright Night and Spy Kids:
4.1 All the Time in the World.
Conan is a 3-D remake of the popu-
lar 1982 film in which Conan's tribe is
wiped out early in the movie. Conan
(Jason Momoa) seeks revenge. Ron
Perlman, 61, plays Conan's father,
with Stephen Lang, 59, as Khalar
Zym, a ruthless warlord.
Fright Night, a remake of the hit
1985 film, stars Anton Yelchin (Chekov
in the latest Star Trek movie), 22, as
48
August 18 • 2011
Anton Yelchin
Christopher
Mintz-Plasse
Charlie Brewster,
a high school stu-
dent who becomes
convinced his new
neighbor, Jerry (Colin
Ferrell), is a vampire.
Charlie enlists the
help of a vampire
hunter, but Jerry
turns Charlie's best
friend, Ed, into a vam-
pire, too.
Playing Ed is
Christopher Mintz-
Plasse, 22. Mintz-
Plasse, whose mother
is Jewish, is best
known as "McLovin"
in Superbad. Singer Lisa Loeb, 43,
plays Ed's mother, and Dave Franco,
26, the brother of actor James
Franco, appears in a smallish role.
In Spy Kids, the fourth film in
the franchise and the first new film
since 2003, Marissa (Jessica Alba),
a retired secret agent, is called
back into service by her former spy
agency when the manically evil "The
Timekeeper" (Jeremy Piven, 44)
threatens the world. She enlists the
help of her twin 10-year-old stepchil-
dren, who are helped by Carmen and
Juni Cortez, characters in the first
three movies who reappear to equip
the twins with crime-fighting gadgets.
Playing Juni is Daryl Sabara, 19.
Mazel Toy!
Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Philip
Levine, 83, who was born and raised
in Detroit, has just been named the
next Poet Laureate of the United
States, a one-year position. In
announcing his appointment, the
head of the Library of Congress called
Levine "the laureate of the industrial
heartland." A former autoworker,
Levine's poems have often evoked the
grittiness of urban, working-class life.
Detroit native,1970 Oak Park High
grad and in-demand music producer
Don (Fagenson) Was, 58, is the new
chief creative officer for EMI's Blue
Note Records, which has expanded
beyond its jazz base in recent years. P 1