Expressions Old and new visions abound by Bill Rodriguez

Three decades ago, feminism in the streets and on the op-ed pages was as big a deal as in the office, but nowhere was it more hypercharged than in the art gallery. With that in mind, the RISD Museum of Art is presenting Gloria: Another Look at Feminist Art of the 1970s from November 21 through February 1.

The multi-genre survey, stressing performance- and media-based art, will provide historical context through personal correspondence, journals, and other documentation. Included are such renowned names as Laurie Anderson, Yoko Ono, Cindy Sherman, and Jenny Holzer, as well as lesser-known but equally influential artists. Works from the central decade of the exhibition’s title is bracketed by precursors from the ’60s, including Carolee Schneemann, Lynda Benglis, and Valie Export, and pieces that were more readily accepted in the ’80s, such as those by Holzer and Barbara Kruger. Themes range from reassessing sexuality (a leather S&M mask sculpture by Nancy Grossman) to reassessing gender roles (photographs of her son’s first bath by Mary Kelly).

The show was curated at the White Columns Gallery in New York and appeared earlier this year at the Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, which is the only all-female art college in the country.

Since the RISD Museum emphasizes teaching collections for the Rhode Island School of Design, Judith Tannenbaum, its curator of contemporary art, thought that the survey would be an important exhibition to present.

"I think a younger generation of women thinks that feminism belongs to the past, and those issues don’t apply to them," she stated in stressing the show’s importance. "A lot of the work is still very fresh, and it’s still very ‘out there.’ This work was done 25, 30 years ago, and yet it still feels just as potent today."

The opening reception on Thursday, November 20 (coinciding with a Gallery Night Providence) will begin at 6 p.m. with a panel discussion moderated by Gallery Agniel owner Sara Agniel featuring three local artists. At 7 p.m., Tannenbaum will lead a gallery walk and discussion with Ingrid Schaffner, a curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.

Also prominent on the upcoming calendar at RISD is Aaron Siskind: From Chicago to Providence, 1951-91 (October 10 through January 11). The exhibition will allow comparisons of his early work in Chicago with his work in Providence, beginning in 1971 when he came to teach at Rhode Island School of Design. Featured will be Siskind’s "Tar Series" of abstract compositions derived from patch patterns on roads in the city, photographed in the 1980s. Complementing that exhibition will be The New York School: Aaron Siskind in Context (November 7 through January 25) and Interior Drama: Aaron Siskind’s Photographs of the 1940s (November 14 through January 25).

To coincide with the Siskind exhibitions at RISD, photographs from the 1950s to the ’70s by Carl Chiarenza will be on display at the Photography Gallery in the University of Rhode Island Fine Arts Center in Kingston (November 4 through January 31). As an art historian, Chiarenza authored the award-winning biography Aaron Siskind: Pleasures and Terrors in 1982. Meanwhile, in the URI Main Gallery, Contemporary Currents: Suspended Narratives will be presented October 9 through December 8. Several artists who create narrative structures for their visual work, including Deborah Brown, Cynthia Consentino, Michael Oatman, Barbara Rachko, and Joan Wilde, will be presented.

Up College Hill at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery, there will be a show by Korean artist Do-Ho Suh, known for his ethereal fabric rooms (November 8 through December 21). Across the river at the Rhode Island Foundation Gallery, there will be an exhibition of work by the Foundation’s Antonio Cirino Memorial Art Education Fellowship recipients. An artist talk will take place on November 20 at 5 p.m.

Across town at Rhode Island College’s Bannister Gallery, Conrad Atkinson’s Constantly Contesting will be on display October 4 through 24. The British conceptual artist targets such concerns as greed and hypocrisy in much of his work. Landscape and portrait paintings by Brooklyn-based Irish painter Conor Foy will be shown at Gallery Agniel October 18 through 26. The Wheeler Gallery will host a show of paintings by Kim Salerno and sculpture by Rebecca Siemering October 24 through November 13.

Wrapping up a three-week run at the Blackstone Valley Visitor Center on September 21, the annual Pawtucket Art Festival features the Traditions in Sculpture exhibition of East Coast figurative sculptors. Sculptures on the sand will continue in Newport through October 26 at the sixth annual Wind Sea Sky outdoor sculpture festival at Easton’s Beach. Also in Newport, the Deblois Gallery will show the kinetic and light sculptures of Robert Kieronski and the abstract monotypes of Marian L. O’Connell through October 1.

Over in Tiverton at the Virginia Lynch Gallery, the geometric abstractions of Christopher Benson will be on display October 5 through 19. In Jamestown, found-object abstract oil paintings by Tom Deininger will be at the Randall Art Gallery October 3 through November 3. And the Wickford Art Association is holding an Avant-Garde/ Abstract Art Open Juried Show October 17 through November 6.

A long-awaited political art show is coming to Hera Gallery in Wakefield October 4 through November 8. American Democracy Under Siege will present the work of 23 artists, both visual and performing, from conceptual to satirical.

Don’t forget Gallery Night Providence the third Thursday of the month. The September and October ArTrolley tours of art galleries are the last ones before a winter break; they resume in March. For details go to www.gallerynight.info.

And remember that four locally minted artists — RISD alums Do-Ho Suh, Kara Walker, Janine Antoni, and Walton Ford — will be featured in the second season of the PBS series art:21: Art in the Twenty-First Century, which premiered on September 9. Check out video excerpts of their segments at www.pbs.org/art21