2008 Celebration of Women Artists of South Asia

Exhibition:
"Tiger by the Tail! Women Artists of India Transforming Culture"
Tuesday, January 15 - Thursday, July 31, 2008
Mabel Smith Douglass Library Galleries
8 Chapel Drive, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Gallery Hours:
Monday - Thursday 8:30 am - 7pm
Friday 8:30 am - 4pm; weekends by appointment
Curated by: Elinor W. Gadon, Wendy Tarlow Kaplan, & Roobina Karode of the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, Massachusetts.
Artists: Navjot Altaf, Arpana Caur, Kanchan Chander, Sheba Chhachhi, Anita Dube, Sonia Khurana, Pushpamala N., Gogi Saroj Pal, Shukla Sawant, & Arpita Singh.
This exhibition of contemporary Indian art challenges social oppression and gender discrimination, and provides new models for the empowerment of women. It features provocative painting, sculpture, drawing, photography and video art that respond to ongoing patriarchal aggression and communal violence in India.

Exhibition:
"Passage To New Jersey: Women Artists of the South Asian Diaspora in Our Midst"
January 15 - July 31, 2008
Brodsky Center Gallery, Heldrich Conference Center
10 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Gallery hours: 9 am - 5 pm; weekdays
Artists: Siona Benjamin, Anuradha Das, Priya Kambli, Swati Khurana, & Ela Shah.

Performance: "Rang de Nila (Color Me Blue)"
Thursday, January 31, 2008
4:30 pm- reception to follow
Auditorium, Civic Square Building-MGSA
33 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08901
A collaborative dance event by New Jersey visual artist Siona Benjamin and dancers Pranita Jain, Dina Denis & Nicole Walter. Benjamin, a painter originally from Bombay, now living in the U.S., reflects upon her background of being brought up Jewish in a predominately Hindu and Muslim India in her work. An artists' discussion and reception follow the program.

Panel Discussion:
"Passage to New Jersey: Women Artists of the South Asian Diaspora in Our Midst"
Thursday, March 6, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Mabel Smith Douglass Room, Douglass Library
8 Chapel Drive, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
RSVP: events@rci.rutgers.edu
Panel discussion moderated by V. G. Julie Rajan of the Women & Gender Studies Department, Rutgers University, featuring artists Siona Benjamin, Anuradha Das, with curators and scholars.

Exhibition:
"Tiger by the Tail! Women Artists of India Transforming Culture, Part II"
Mason Gross School of the Arts Galleries, Civic Square Building
33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
May 31 - July 1, 2008
Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday 10 am - 4 pm
Organized by Brandeis University Women�s Studies Research Center.
This exhibition of contemporary Indian art challenges social oppression and gender discrimination, and provides new models for the empowerment of women. It features provocative painting, sculpture, drawing, photography and video art that respond to ongoing patriarchal aggression and communal violence in India.

Sponsored by the Institute for Women & Art (IWA) in partnership with Rutgers University Libraries. The IWA operates under the auspices of the Associate Vice President for Academic & Public Partnerships in the Arts & Humanities, Rutgers University. Co-sponsors include: Associate Alumni of Douglass College; Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions/ 0Mason Gross School of the Arts; Department of Art History; The Feminist Art Project, Institute for Research on Women; SAS Office of International Programs; the Women's and Gender Studies Department, all at Rutgers University.

These events are made possible by funding from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/ Department of State, a partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Maria and Henry Leon Memorial Fund. These exhibitions and programs complement campus-wide related events organized by the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum and the South Asian Research Initiative at Rutgers (SARI). In particular, "New Narratives" an exhibition which opens at the Zimmerli Museum in April 2008.

For directions to campus: maps.rutgers.edu

Anita Dube, Sea Creature, 2000, two silver gelatin prints, each 30 x 40 in. From the exhibition, "Tiger by the Tail! Women Artists of India Transforming Culture."

Swati Khurana, Thirsty Bride, 2005, digital inkjet print, 30 x 20 in.
From the exhibition, "Passage to New Jersey: Women Artists of the South Asian Diaspora in Our Midst."

"On Either Side"
Berni Searle
2007-2008 Estelle Lebowitz Visiting Artist-in-Residence
October 1, - December 14, 2007

Lecture by Dr. Kellie Jones
"Women / Artists / Africa and Berni Searle"

Wednesday, November 14, 2007, Reception at 6 pm; Lecture at 6:30 pm
Mabel Smith Douglass Room, Douglass Library, 8 Chapel Drive, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
RSVP by November 7: events@rci.rutgers.edu or (732) 932-7505

Dr. Jones is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. An art historian and curator, her research interests include African American and African Diaspora artists, Latino/a and Latin American Artists, and issues in contemporary art and museum theory. [More]

Sponsors: Institute for Women and Art, under the auspices of the Office of the Associate Vice President for Academic & Public Partnerships in the Arts & Humanities, in partnership with Rutgers University Libraries and: Associate Alumnae of Douglass College; Brodsky Center and Visiting Artists Series/Visual Arts Department, Mason Gross School of the Arts; Center for African Studies; Department of Art History; Douglass Residential College and the Barbara Voorhees Leadership Initiative; The Feminist Art Project; Institute for Research on Women; SAS Office of International Programs; and the Women's and Gender Studies Department. This event is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

For Press Release please see http://iwa.rutgers.edu/searle.html

Waiting #1, 2003, Lithograph on watercolour paper, 50.5 x 66 cm
Photo Credit: Gaetane Hermans

Estelle Lebowitz Visiting Artist-in-Residence Lectureship

With the 1999-2000 academic year, a new program that enhances the Series was inaugurated, The Estelle Lebowitz Visiting Artist-in-Residence Lectureship. This program affords the University community and general public the opportunity to not only view the work of a renowned contemporary woman artist, but also to meet with her in classes and public lectures.

Artists who held the Lebowitz lectureship:

2006-2007: May Stevens
2005-2006: Molly Snyder-Fink
2004-2005: Miriam Schapiro
2001-2002: Hung Liu
2000-2001: June Wayne, Siri Berg
1999-2000: Carolee Schneeman

History of the Series

The Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series, established in 1971 at the Mabel Smith Douglass Library, is the longest-running, continuing series of exhibitions dedicated to increasing the visibility of women artists in the United States. Formerly known as the Women Artists Series, in 1987 the Series was renamed in memory of Mary H. Dana, (Douglass College [DC], Class of 1942), by her friend, Professor Emeritus Nelle Smithers. The Series was initiated upon the suggestion of alumna artist Joan Snyder (DC, 1962), to Library Director Daisy Brightenback Shenholm (DC, 1944), who responded enthusiastically, and appointed the Series' first coordinator, Lynn F. Miller. During the Series' first twenty-five years, close to 200 artists, both acclaimed and emerging, have exhibited in the Douglass Library lobby gallery space and under the direction of other former coordinators Evelyn Apgar (DC, 1969), Beryl Smith (DC, 1982), Bonnie Goldstein, Karen McGruder, Elsa Bruguier, and Marianne Ficarra (DC, 1988). Dr. Ferris Olin (DC, 1970), has served as the Series' curator since 1994. In 2004, with Ferris Olin, Joseph Consoli and Sara Harrington were appointed co-curators of the Series. Since Fall 2006, the Series is co-curated by Judith K. Brodsky and Ferris Olin.

Advisory Board

Mary S. Hartman, Institute for Women's Leadership
Mary Hawkesworth, Professor, Women's & Gender Studies
Lisa Hetfield, Institute for Women's Leadership
Dorothy Hodgson, Professor, Anthropology
Beth Hutchison, Institute for Research on Women
Michael Joseph, Librarian, RUL Special Collections
Joan Marter, Professor, Art and Art History
Lynn F. Miller, Attorney, Miller & Miller
Isabel Nazario, Associate Vice President for Arts & Humanities
Gregory J. Perry, Director, Zimmerli Art Museum
Nicole Plett, executive officer, Institute for Women & Art
Françoise Puniello, Acting Associate University Librarian, RUL
Martin Rosenberg, Chair, Dept. of Fine Arts, Rutgers Camden
Daisy Shenholm, RUL, retired
Roberta K. Tarbell, Associate Professor, Art and Art History
Jorge Daniel Veneciano, Director, Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers

Contact Information

If you would like to be added to the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series mailing list, please contact:

Dr. Ferris Olin
Co-Director, Institute for Women and Art
Curator, Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series
Douglass Library
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
8 Chapel Drive
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
olin@rci.rutgers.edu

Nicole Ianuzelli
Curatorial Assistant, Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series
Douglass Library
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
8 Chapel Drive
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
nik12a@rci.rutgers.edu

The Margery Somers Foster Center

The Margery Somers Foster Center (www.libraries.rutgers.edu/msfoster) maintains artists files for emerging and established contemporary women artists. There are files relating to artists who have exhibited in the the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series and its operational history. In addition, women artists are invited to submit their resume, an artist statement and supporting documentation to be housed in the Contemporary Women Artists Files (CWAF). Should an artist wish to be included in the CWAA, they must submit their materials to: Dr. Ferris Olin, Head, Margery Somers Foster Center, Mabel Smith Douglass Library-Rutgers, 8 Chapel Drive, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8527.

These archives are open to scholars, curators, researchers and students who seek documentation about women's art practices by appointment.