Nice Review of Feminist Art Show including ORLY COGAN

Art in Brief
By JENNIFER RILEY
March 22, 2007

WOMEN'S WORK: Homage to Feminist Art
Tabla Rasa Gallery

Under the title "Women's Work: Homage to Feminist Art," Tabla Rasa and the Feminist Art Journal present an all women's exhibition that gathers together the work of 20 artists, each represented by one work. Coincident with several exhibitions this spring devoted to feminist art, this show reflects curator Cindy Nemser's view that for a woman to create art is a feminist action, whether political in intent or not.

The show offers no overt organizing theme other than the fact that the work is made by women. While this is chaotic at first glance, several themes link the works, which span from the 1970s to 2006. Work by artists with formidable careers hang comfortably next to near unknown talents. Ms. Nemser has selected sculpture, video, embroidery, photography, pastels, charcoal drawing, and abstract and figurative paintings. The works range from the political — Sue Coe's 1992 etching "Thank You America ( Anita Hill)" in which America is spelled "Amerikkka" — to the witty and personal — Orly Cogan's hand-stitched bed cover with figures in various states of undress and play.

Themes from the realms of psychology and mythology figure prominently. Two monumental self-portraits from Hanna Wilke's "Intra-Venus Series #7 Feb. 20 and Aug. 18, 1992" command the room from the back wall. Ms. Wilke's chilling gaze, a mixture of vulnerability and acceptance, is captured during treatments for cancer, the disease that shortly thereafter claimed her. Velvet ropes cordon off the images for practical reasons — they are unframed, frontmounted chromogenic supergloss prints — and become a metaphorical threshold.

Nearby, Audrey Flack's bronze head, "Amor Vicit Omnia," with tubes oozing paint and a handgun spun into Medusa-like locks, is a distant relative of a mythological Gorgon. Eleanor Antin's chromogenic print "Alice's Dream for Roman Allegories" extends this dialogue and seems to be speaking to a delightful set of portraits: "The Blue Dress" by the 90-year-old Chelsea-based painter Sylvia Sliegh and Audrey Anastasi's darker "Psychodrama Mama."

March 28 until May 13 (224 48th St. at Second Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-833-0305).