Claremont Museum of Art Hosts Summer Events to Complement Vexing: Female Voices from East LA Punk
Two images from the Vexing installation
Claremont, CA (June 6, 2008) — The Claremont Museum of Art is pleased to present a full slate of summer programs for the whole family to complement Vexing: Female Voices from East LA Punk, which runs until August 31, 2008.
Sunday, June 15, 12 – 4 p.m.
Family Art Day: “Stenciled t-shirts”
Free and open to the public
Celebrate Father’s Day and make a t-shirt for Dad! Screen print artist John E. Miner will show you how. Miner studied silkscreen techniques under the tutelage of Richard S. Duardo and is an adjunct professor at Pasadena City College where he teaches graphic design and silkscreening.
Saturday, June 21, 7:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Butchlalis de Panochtitlan: “The Barber of East L.A.”
Free for Museum Members, $5 for non-members
Don’t miss excerpts and monologues from “The Barber of East L.A.,” the first full-length play by Butchlalis de Panochtitlan (BdP), a multimedia performance ensemble comprised of Mari Garcia, Raquel Gutierrez and Claudia Rodriguez. In “The Barber of East L.A.,” directed by MacArthur Fellow Luis Alfaro, BdP calls queer Chicano history into question while tipping its hat to the Chicano punk scene and the rise of such grassroots spaces as Self Help Graphics.
Framed historically by the Chicano moratorium against the Vietnam War, the death of Ruben Salazar and the impending election of Ronald Reagan, “The Barber of East L.A.” is a story about outsider Latinos living in East L.A. neighborhoods, combining fictional characters with real events against a tumultuous period of the recent past.
Saturday, July 12, 3 p.m.
Film Screening: “Pretty Vacant”
Free for Museum Members, $5 for non-members
Molly “La Molly” Vasquez – perennial junior college art student, drummer for an all-girl band and Sex Pistols devotee – is on deadline to finish her self-published underground Chicano ‘zine. Directed by Jim Mendiola, 33 min.
Sunday, July 20, 12 – 4 p.m.
Family Art Day: “Making Music”
Free and open to the public
Let the muse in you speak through music. From punk to folk, music therapist and audio producer Venus Kitagowa-Stojsik will work with children and family members to create original musical experiences.
Sunday, August 17, 12 – 4 p.m.
Family Art Day: “Pins”
Free and open to the public
Have something to say? Say it on a pin! We’ll help you design your own custom pin.
Saturday, August 30, 8 p.m.
Live Performance: “Sirens” and “Go Betty Go”
Free for Museum Members, $5 for non-members
Two all-girl L.A. bands come together for a lively performance! The spunky and aggressive pop-punk band Go Betty Go and all-girl rock/punk/Spanish fusion quartet The Sirens perform together for this final weekend of Vexing.
About Vexing
Vexing is an historical investigation of the women at the forefront of the punk rock scene in East L.A. in the 1970s and ’80s. The exhibition features photo, video and audio archives of the era as well as studio work encompassing painting, installation, writings and performance.
Participants include musicians Alice Bag, Teresa Covarrubias, Angela Vogel, Monica Flores, musician and artist Exene Cervenka, artists Diane Gamboa and Patssi Valdez, photographers Dawn Wirth, Louis Jacinto, Linda Posnick and Frank Gargani, recording label founder of Fatima Records Yolanda Comparan Ferrer, printmakers Richard Duardo, Jessee Vidaurre and John Miner, and filmmaker Jimmy Mendiola. Representing a newer generation of artistic producers
influenced by these women are musician/artist Lysa Flores, artists Shizu Saldamando and Sandra de la Loza, photographer Chris TV, performance group Butchlalis de Panochtitlan, and bands The Sirens and Go Betty Go.
Research and reproduction support provided by the Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA. This exhibition is cocurated by Pilar Tompkins and Colin Gunckel. A catalog will accompany the exhibition, with essays by Josh Kun, Michelle Habell-Pallán, Isabel Castro-Melendez, Colin Gunckel and Pilar Tompkins.
Accompanying Vexing
Zoe Crosher: The Reconsidered Archive of Michelle du Bois
In the 1970s and ‘80s, an American woman named Michelle du Bois traveled alone through cities in the Pacific Rim and documented her highly sexual and liberated lifestyle, collecting hundreds of tourist photographs, family snapshots, and risqué images of herself – and her alter egos. In The Reconsidered Archive of Michelle du Bois, artist Zoe Crosher has manipulated these archived materials to elicit various narratives from within du Bois’s complex process of autodocumentation.
In Crosher’s photographic groupings, Du Bois is heroine and ingénue, toying with persona, fetishism and exoticism. A distinct portrait of a woman emerges, one that is tied to the women’s and sexual liberation movements of the era, while revealing the vulnerability that accompanies the trappings of her lifestyle and her slippery identity.
Zoe Crosher is a Los Angeles-based artist who received her MFA from CalArts in Valencia and her BA from UC Santa Cruz. Selected exhibitions include: 1-Yr Later, Diverseworks, Houston and DEleanor Hardwood Gallery, San Francisco; OUT THE WINDOW (LAX) at DCKT Contemporary, NY and Small A Projects, Portland, OR; Small Things Fail, Great Things Endure, New Langton Arts, San Francisco, CA and Re-Make, Re-Model, d’Amelio Terras, New York, NY.
Maya Schindler: Blah, Blah, Blah Revolution
Frequently employing play on words, Maya Schindler’s work ranges from the fanciful to the political. The artist’s witty, text-based sculptures and wall pieces beckon the viewer to activate the works by enunciating the phrase presented. Blah, Blah, Blah Revolution is an outdoor sculptural piece that utilizes scale and material to further the irony of a juxtaposition of apathy and activism.
Maya Schindler is a Los Angeles-based artist originally from Jerusalem, Israel. She received her MFA from Yale University and her BFA from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, and attended the CORE program in Houston. Recent solo exhibitions include The Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, THE NEW DEAL at Anna Helwing Gallery, Los Angeles, and In Confidence at South First in Brooklyn.
About the Museum: The Claremont Museum of Art seeks to serve a diverse public as a regional museum of international significance and breadth. Grounded in Claremont’s important artistic legacy, the Museum engages artists and audiences through a compelling program of exhibitions and educational programs that connect the visual arts with contemporary life. In addition to a diverse slate of exhibitions, the museum features an eclectic store offering contemporary and unexpected gifts from around the world. A comprehensive slate of educational programming and events are offered for all ages. Claremont Museum of Art is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization.