Exhibition Dates

October 1st - December 20th, 2009

Exhibition Title

Reimagining the Distaff Toolkit

Overview

Each work in Reimagining the Distaff Toolkit has, at its visible core, a tool that was important for women’s domestic labor in the past. These tools, when re-contextualized as contemporary works of art, open a dialogue between the past and present. The tools that once facilitated hard, repetitive, and often unpaid women’s labor are reborn as the Distaff* artists have taken the re-purposed objects and transformed them into something that pays tribute to the past while encouraging a critical analysis of society and culture from various histories.

* The distaff is a tool attached to a spinning wheel, designed to hold unspun fibers. Over time, “distaff” came to refer to matters and objects in the domestic or women’s sphere, and then, to women, generally.

Curated by

Rickie Solinger

Featured Artist(s)

Lisa Alvarado

Kim Anno

Tiffany Besonen

Mary Jo Bole

Barbara Leoff Burge

Carol Ann Carter

Colin Chase

Tom Cohen

Dave Cole

Léonie Guyer

Karen Hendrickson

Judy Hoyt

Mildred Johnson

Tatana Kellner

Tracy Krumm

Lisa Link

Sallie McCorkle

Debra Priestly

Larry Ruhl

Betye Saar

Alison Saar

Eliśka Smiley

Laura Splan

Allen Topolski

Gail Tremblay

Marie Watt

Flo Oy Wong

Place(s) Exhibited

Mandeville Gallery, Nott Memorial, 2nd Floor

Reviews

Times Union

Reception & Other Events

Opening Reception
Friday, October 2, 2009
5 – 8 pm
At the Nott Memorial

Curator Talk
Becoming a Curator: Seeing Race, Class, Gender and History in Objects and Images
Thursday, October 1, 2009
4 pm
Reamer Campus Center Auditorium