Curators’ Introductions to Solo Exhibitions – Slow Boil
Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen’s University Kingston, ON 2006
Jocelyn Purdie curator
Introduction on wall panel
In a reconsideration of second wave feminism and its artistic manifestations, slow boil brings together recent additions to the Art Centre’s collection of contemporary art by Kingston artist Mary Rawlyk with a video by American artist Martha Rosler. In tone and inventive use of materials Rawlyk’s works from the 1970s and 1980s resonate with Rosler’s iconic 1975 piece, Semiotics of the Kitchen. The works in slowboil reflect the gendered conventions of domestic life that were called into question during this period through humour and irony tinged with edgy surrealistic imaginings. Placing themselves in the works as subjects, these artists each use domestic objects to expose currents of frustration, rage and near madness simmering beneath the veneer of polite domesticity.
The exhibition Features Rawlyk’s early series of prints of seemingly benign domestic objects, and works from the housewife/housework series in which images of the artist’s head float hauntingly inside assorted kitchen objects. While clearly influenced by 1960s pop culture, Rawlyk’s work is further distinguished by her use of real objects in the printmaking process, adding a physicality and familiarity to the work that grounds it in the realities of women’s issues of the period. These elements of form and content marked Rawlyk’s contribution to the field of Printmaking. Her accomplishments were acknowledged in a 1974 solo exhibition at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, which featured works from the domestic object series and, in a large solo exhibition presented at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa and Mount Saint Vincent Art Gallery in Halifax.
Rosler’s Semiotics of the Kitchen features the artist/performer in an alphabetized, deadpan show -and- tell of the kitchen implements and their applications, in which the objects transgress familiar associations. Intimations of anger, resentment and revenge surface over the course of this landmark work. Rosler’s contribution to feminist art practice in video, performance, writing and photography are renowned. She has exhibited extensively internationally, including the 50th Venice Bienniale in 2003, and received the Spectrum International Prize in Photography in 2005 and the Oskar Kokoschka Prize in 2006.
This Exhibition conjures up a period in art history when new strategies and processes were being used to enhance the women’s movement. Embodying the aesthetic of feminist activism, the works in slow boil provide a lens through which current conditions can be considered at a time when rights regarding reproductive choice, access to child care, and protection from domestic violence are once again on the political agenda in Canada and the United States.