The Let Down Reflex
January 30 - March 12, 2016
And Everything Else, 2015
Image: copyright and courtesy of Melissa Smedley & Home Affairs
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 30, 2 - 4 pm
At EFA Project Space, 323 W. 39th St, 2nd floor
Artists: Dillon de Give, Home Affairs (Arzu Ozkal, Claudia Costa Pederson & Nanette Yannuzzi), Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn, Leisure (Meredith Carruthers & Susannah Wesley), Lise Haller Baggesen, LoVid, Shane Aslan Selzer
Curated by: Amber Berson and Juliana Driever
The Let Down Reflex is an exhibition that attempts to recognize the complexities of parenting in the art world, and asks if a better alternative for families can exist. Calling out a slippage in today’s feminist art world, the curators summon a group of artist-parents to contribute to a springboard for re-imagining an art world where “Mom” is not a demeaning characterization, where childcare is factored in for participating artists at art spaces, and where artists aren’t forced to choose between home and work because of a lack of parental leave. The “let down reflex,” a term referencing the involuntary reflex that causes nursing mothers to produce breast milk, takes on a double meaning in this exhibition, referring here to the reflexive tendency of letting down parents, and particularly mothers, within the flawed labor system of the art world.
PRESS RELEASE
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
RELATED PRESS
- On the Parent-Shaped Hole in the Art World, Canadian Art
RELATED EVENTS
Sat, Jan 30, 2 - 4 pm: Opening Reception. Families and children are encouraged to attend.
Wed, Feb 17 & Fri, Feb 19, 7:30 PM: By My Own Admission, performance by Dillon de Give.
Thu, Mar 10, 6:30 - 9 PM: Artists Raising Kids Webinar: A Collective Gathering, a seminar by Andrew Simonet organized in conjunction with Creative Capital.
This presentation is made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council for the Arts' Electronic Media and Film Presentation Funds grant program, administered by The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes and Women and Performance: a journal of feminist theory.
