Sister Space

Here’s a couple of slices from the Fuse Box Collaboration Project at Big Medium Gallery from last Saturday night, featuring the work of our own Lisa Choinacky (Women & Their Work’s Operations Manager) and NYC artist Jake Borndal. The Fuse Box collaboration pairs five different Austin-based artists with artists from different locations and media for two exhibitions: Double Reality, in which the artists show their solo work side by side, and Double Fantasy, the tag-team work of the paired artists. These pics are taken from the Double Fantasy collab. See that little radio there? It only plays the weather station.

The words on the shower curtain are taken verbatim from a mysterious text message Jake received while they were conceptualizing their work. True story!

Oh, how I could generate volumes about the work of Lisa Choinacky in general, but Nat Russell already beat me to the punch.

Women & Their Work is celebrating 30 years of helping women artists, and for the month of May, the GiftShop will offer 30% off many gifts. It’s a great place to get the perfect Mother’s Day gift. Don’t forget, Mother’s Day is May 11.

Look for the pink dots!

We all know that female artists are underrepresented in galleries and art history tomes in addition to earning less than their male counterparts. Duh–that’s one of the main reasons Women & Their Work exists. But as a new documentary reveals, there’s another annoying peril that awaits the woman artist: the boyfriend who can’t deal with your success.

Even though photographer Cindy Sherman was already a certified art star with a celebrated 20-year career under her belt when she met and fell in love with filmmaker Paul H-O in the mid-90s, the dude seems utterly taken aback that her lifestyle had a certain corresponding cachet that his lacked. According to H-O in his new doc Guest of Cindy Sherman, he suffered while dating Sherman because his identity “went into hibernation or was subsumed by this much greater force… In the old days there were these things called Rolodexes with little cards. Mine had like 10 cards, and hers had 1,000. And, you know, Salman Rushdie would be in hers. Her world was a lot bigger and more powerful than mine.”

Awww. Wouldn’t it have been a lot hotter of him to acknowledge how lucky he was to share five interesting years with a rad, creative lady? And as for his assertion, “I know what it feels like to be a wife that no one pays attention to”–implying that because he is male, he shouldn’t have to occupy the role of less-famous partner? So. Over it. And Cindy Sherman is apparently over it, too.
I Dated Cindy Sherman…and All I Got Was This Documentary[Salon]
Cindy Sherman’s Un-Famous Ex-Boyfriend Finds That “Being A Wife” Is the Pits[Jezebel]

As you may already know, Katy Heinlein’s W&TW show Unknown Pleasures aroused much curiosity. Maybe this chat with the artist recorded by Los Outsiders will dispel some of the mystery. Check it:

http://losoutsiders.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/artist-katy-heinlein/

When you’re surfing the ‘netz, how do you find out about art events and art news? You probably have a far-flung constellation of links you check in on to keep up with galleries, news, reviews, openings, auctions, art fairs, museums, and so forth.

Well, there’s this new subscription-based art site, MutualArt.com, that will collect all that info for you, culled from thousands of international sources and customized according to your specific interests. The site is still in beta, but Women & Their Work can hook you up with a free membership. From their site:

MutualArt.com has a completely new approach to art on the web. Members can track categories of art - even individual artists - and receive new information on these from thousands of sources. They also receive advance notification of art events in the categories they choose - from exhibitions and lectures to opening parties and galas, to auctions offering works by their preferred artists.

MutualArt.com includes the world’s largest online archive of over 150,000 art related articles from over 250 quality magazines, newspapers and journals, as well as providing a conduit for galleries, museums, auction houses, art fairs and publishers to reach their target audiences over a single, global platform.

Even if you’re more of a lurker than a joiner, you should totally take advantage of this! It’s 2008–if you don’t have the Interwebs customizing everything for you by now, you’re doing it wrong. To claim your spot on MutualArt, follow this link:
http://www.mutualart.com/MutualArt/Register/registerContent.aspx?redeemInvitation=1&promo=WTW964

Should you have problems with the link above, you may also go to
MutualArt.com, click on “Access Code” and enter: WTW964.

Now let the stalking of your favorite artists commence.