By Mary Thomas
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
As soon as you step into the elevator, you’ve entered the 2011 Pittsburgh Biennial at The Andy Warhol Museum, and you know things are going to be a little bit different.
Artist Ayanah Moor has chosen that space for her sound work, “All My Girlfriends,” which sets the tone for the saucy exhibition, one of five that made up this special Biennial year.
Exhibition curator Eric Shiner, who was Warhol curator when he began selecting for the Biennial and is now museum director, has subtitled his show “Gertrude’s/LOT,” a reference to one of the most famous Pittsburgh-born literary figures, Gertrude Stein. Drawing upon the gatherings of artists and free thinkers that Ms. Stein hosted after moving to Paris in 1903 — and in recognition of other female luminaries with Pittsburgh roots such as artist Mary Cassatt, author Willa Cather, dancer Martha Graham and biologist Rachel Carson — Mr. Shiner has invited 22 women whose diverse formal and conceptual expressions add up to a dynamic salon of their own.
Ms. Moor, who is African-American, received inspiration from a weekly feature in Jet magazine named “Beauty of the Week.” A full-page photograph of a woman of color in a swimsuit was published with brief personal information including name, occupation and physical measurements, written, the label text says, “for an assumed male viewer.”
In reading these descriptions aloud, Ms. Moor subverts the male prerogative, taking them from the context for which they were intended to a public realm where they may be examined.
Teresa Foley also looks at the way a segment of men perceive women — inadvertently buying into stereotyping — via “men seeking women” ads on craigslist. The men, trying to impress, speak to what they hope women will find attractive. Ms. Foley is a ventriloquist to her dummy, Hector, who spouts the sometimes laughable, sometimes sad ads in a video, “On Display,” with a clown-like, humor-and-menace mix.
Alisha Wormsley plays out gender and racial roles in a post-apocalyptic narrative that reunites historically warring tribes of dark-skinned women and light-skinned men for species survival. The lovely, dreamy film is only “Chapter one: Beginnings,” but it makes the viewer want to learn how it turns out.
Renee Stout, a former Pittsburgher who lives in Washington, D.C., asserts prowess through her alter ego, conjure-woman Fatima Mayfield, in a magical installation, “The Rootwoman’s Worktable.” Part of an ongoing series, it leaves no doubt as to who’s in charge of the love potions and curative herbs should a relationship arise.
Those are a sampling of the show’s works, and one way of reading them. The feminist critique is certainly an important undercurrent, most potently in the still-powerful 1978 video “Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman” by a seminal artist of that medium, Dara Birnbaum. It’s notably among numbers of now historically important video artworks collected by Bill Judson when he headed Carnegie Museum of Art’s defunct film and video department.
The reach of these many artists is broad. Noted photographer Jill Freedman mined the New York scene in the 1960s and ‘70s, including a 1979 image of Andy Warhol, “Blondie Warhol,” next to a wall plastered with Interview magazine covers. Eileen Lewis, another star in the photography world, has generated praise and criticism for controversial images of young girls on the cusp of the loss of innocence.
Dulce Pinzon addresses everyday heroism with a thought-provoking series of photographs that show Mexican immigrants in their places of employment wearing superhero costumes. Her titles include the amount of money the workers send back to their families in Mexico, as in “Wonder Woman is MARIA LUISA ROMERO from the State of Puebla. Works in a Laundromat in Brooklyn New York. She sends 150 dollars a week.”
Braddock native and New Jersey resident LeToya Ruby Frazier takes on UPMC in a poignant series of photographs with descriptive titles that each end in the refrain “(Save Our Community Hospital).”
Painting resides in a more lyrical realm, including Patricia Bellan-Gillen’s richly worked conflation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice and the biblical Lot’s wife; Karen Seapker’s tumultuous domestic (perhaps) scene; and Elise Adibi’s abstract “Oxidation Paintings” that are akin to earlier works by Andy Warhol.
Vanessa German — whose style is both bombastic and imperative — and Diane Samuels, a quiet pool of interiority, are each a pleasure whenever they exhibit.
Ms. German also performed at the show’s opening, but performance is an element that is difficult to maintain during an exhibition’s duration. Lilith Bailey-Kroll’s enigmatic filmic meditation upon death is occasionally screened in The Warhol theater, and a video tracks Jill Miller’s “The Milk Truck,” a portable sanctuary in which a woman may breast feed. Also, a costume remains of Amisha Gadani’s performance.
Carrie Schneider (whose main body of work was displayed in the Pittsburgh Filmmakers segment of the Biennial), Cara Erskine, Deborah Kass, Kim Beck and Madelyn Roehrig complete the show (don’t miss work by the latter two in adjacent galleries). Conversation emanates from each piece and becomes richer the longer you stay in this last remaining Biennial show.