Practice in Dialogue - In Whose Eyes?

PRESS RELEASE

Practice in Dialogue

In Whose Eyes?

4 July – 5 August 2018

Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall

Wednesday – Sunday, 11–5pm

Preview: Tuesday 3 July, 6.30-8.30pm

Live performance by Catherine Long Thursdays and Saturdays 12-4pm (except Saturday 14 July).

Live perfomance by Rose Gibbs, Catherine Long and Martina Schmuecker as part of

Art Night London: Saturday 7 July, 6pm-1am.

Symposium: Sunday 29 July, 11-4pm

IN WHOSE EYES? SUBJECTIVITY–REPRESENTATION–POWER

Miriam Austin | Ingrid Berthon-Moine | Cécile Emmanuelle Borra | Phoebe Collings-James | Rose Gibbs | Lora Hristova | Catherine Long | Ope Lori | Anja Olofgörs | Lauren Schneider | Martina Schmuecker | NT

How can feminist art intervene in dominant culture when the conditions of female representation are so overly determined by the constraints of objectification, sexualisation, violence and racism? This, for artists, is the vexed question.

Taking the act of looking as a starting point, the artists who have collectivised as Practice in Dialogue explore questions of female subjectivity, representation and power in contemporary Western culture. Who is made visible – or excluded – and how they are represented in culture is highly political and impacts on people’s lives in numerous intersectional ways. At the same time, the act of looking is never neutral, where we look from and our privilege or marginalisation shapes what we see. The Australian feminist philosopher Elizabeth Grosz asserts that feminism is deeply engaged with the issue of representation primarily because women’s invisibility in dominant culture was one of the catalysts for the women’s liberation movement. Visual art remains a key site of cultural (re)production and is in direct dialogue with mainstream culture: the two visual fields borrowing imagery from each other in a reciprocal and cannibalistic relationship.