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Alien She was an art exhibition organized by the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon and curated by Astria Suparak and Ceci Moss, both of whom are former Riot Grrls. [1] Alien She was the first art exhibition to examine the impact the riot grrrl musical movement had on the artists and cultural producers of today. The exhibition's title refers to a Bikini Kill song of the same name. [1] [2] [3]
Alien She showcases seven artists' work who were inspired by the Riot Grrrl genre. [4] The artists' projects span the last 20 year,. [1] [2] [3] and included sculptures, photographs, artist books, videos, and drawings. [5] These works offer viewers insight into the artistic diversity of the Riot Grrrl movement and demonstrate how the ideals of the movement have evolved through the works of contemporary artists today. [1] [2] [3]
The exhibition's historical section was designed to reflect the "living history" of the Riot Grrrl genre. This section included posters, self-published zines and other ephemera solicited on loan from private and institutional archives. This section also includes a listening station with music representative of international Riot Grrrl bands. [1] [2] [3]
The art exhibition began its nationwide tour on September 20, 2016, at the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon [2] [1] and traveled to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; Orange County Museum of Art among other venues [2]
The exhibition was reviewed in the Journal of Modern Craft, [6] the Los Angeles Times , [7] and the College Art Association's caa.reviews. [8]
Most of the artists showcased in the exhibition work across multiple artistic disciplines. The artists included in the exhibition all have worked collaboratively and many of them have created platforms for other under-recognized artists and groups to connect and self-publish their works. [1] [2] [3] Artists in the show included: Ginger Brooks Takahashi (Pittsburgh), Miranda July (Los Angeles), Tammy Rae Carland (Oakland), Faythe Levine (Milwaukee), L.J. Roberts (Brooklyn), Allyson Mitchell (Toronto) and Stephanie Syjuco (San Francisco).
Amy Gerstler is an American poet. She won a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Tammy Rae Carland, is a photographer, video artist, zine editor, current provost at California College of the Arts (CCA), and former co-owner of the independent lesbian music label Mr. Lady Records and Videos. Her work has been published, screened, and exhibited around the world in galleries and museums in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berlin, and Sydney.
Samella Sanders Lewis was an American visual artist and art historian. She worked primarily as a printmaker and painter. She has been called the "Godmother of African American Art". She received Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement from the College Art Association (CAA) in 2021.
“Art is not a luxury as many people think – it is a necessity. It documents history – it helps educate people and stores knowledge for generations to come.” – Dr. Samella Lewis
Mark Bradford is an American visual artist. Bradford was born, lives, and works in Los Angeles and studied at the California Institute of the Arts. Recognized for his collaged painting works, which have been shown internationally, his practice also encompasses video, print, and installation. Bradford was the U.S. representative for the 2017 Venice Biennale. He was included in Time Magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in 2021.
The Nancy Cantor Warehouse, or simply The Warehouse, is a former storage warehouse of the Syracuse-based Dunk and Bright Furniture Company in Downtown Syracuse, New York, United States. It is owned and utilized by Syracuse University.
Echo Eggebrecht is an American artist and academic known for landscape paintings.
Christina Billotte is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, known for her involvement in the punk music scene in Washington, D.C., as a performer and organizer. She is included in Venus Zine's list "The Greatest Female Guitarists of All Time".
The feminist art movement in the United States began in the early 1970s and sought to promote the study, creation, understanding and promotion of women's art. First-generation feminist artists include Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, Suzanne Lacy, Judith Bernstein, Sheila de Bretteville, Mary Beth Edelson, Carolee Schneeman, Rachel Rosenthal, and many other women. They were part of the Feminist art movement in the United States in the early 1970s to develop feminist writing and art. The movement spread quickly through museum protests in both New York and Los Angeles, via an early network called W.E.B. that disseminated news of feminist art activities from 1971 to 1973 in a nationally circulated newsletter, and at conferences such as the West Coast Women's Artists Conference held at California Institute of the Arts and the Conference of Women in the Visual Arts, at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C..
Rock for Choice was a series of benefit concerts held over the ten-year period between 1991 and 2001. The concerts were designed to allow musicians to show their support for the abortion rights movement in the United States and Canada.
The Miller ICA at Carnegie Mellon University is the contemporary art gallery of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Joyce Kozloff is an American artist known for her paintings, murals, and public art installations. She was one of the original members of the Pattern and Decoration movement and an early artist in the 1970s feminist art movement, including as a founding member of the Heresies collective.
Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington and the greater Pacific Northwest and has expanded to at least 26 other countries. Riot grrrl is a subcultural movement that combines feminism, punk music, and politics. It is often associated with third-wave feminism, which is sometimes seen as having grown out of the riot grrrl movement and has recently been seen in fourth-wave feminist punk music that rose in the 2010s. The genre has also been described as coming out of indie rock, with the punk scene serving as an inspiration for a movement in which women could express anger, rage, and frustration, emotions considered socially acceptable for male songwriters but less common for women.
Astria Suparak is an American artist and curator from Los Angeles, California. Suparak has curated events and exhibitions for Eyebeam, The Kitchen, PS1, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Museo Tamayo, Anthology Film Archives, Liverpool Biennial and Yale University and a number of alternative venues.
Nikki McClure is a papercut artist based in Olympia, Washington. She is the author and illustrator of a number of children's books and produces an annual calendar.
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Ginger Brooks Takahashi is an American artist based in Brooklyn, New York, and North Braddock, Pennsylvania. A self-identified “punk,” Takahashi grew up in Oregon. She co-founded the feminist genderqueer collective and journal LTTR and the Mobilivre project, a touring exhibition and library. She was also a member of MEN (band). Her work consists of a collaborative project-based practice. Takahashi is currently an adjunct professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University.
Sara Marcus is a writer and musician best known for her 2010 book Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution. She began her writing career as a participant in the riot grrrl movement, writing zines as a teenager in Washington, DC. She subsequently worked as a journalist, writing about music and politics. In 2018, she earned a PhD in English at Princeton University and is an assistant professor of English at the University of Notre Dame.
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Brittany Ransom. is an American Artist and associate professor of art at Carnegie Mellon University who is known for her sculpture and installation work that explores environmental issues and is made using digital fabrication processes. Ransom lives and works in Pittsburgh and New Orleans. She is the great-great-granddaughter of civil rights activist Reverdy C. Ransom.
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