LA Book Launch-The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art

An interview I conducted with leading American feminist conceptual artist Mary Kelly and artist son Kelly Barrie, on the ongoing legacies of second wave feminism in motherhood and art is a chapter in this new book, The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art. The polyphonic interview was held at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art at the 2008 Sydney Biennale, where Mary Kelly and Kelly Barrie had a profoundly moving collaborative video installation, Antepartum (1973) and Astralfields and Other Manifestations (2008) that re-visited Mary Kelly's influential early Super-8 film of her own pregnant belly caressed by maternal hands. After taking photographs in their installation, Mary and Kelly and I held a fascinating conversation that ranged over their experiences of artistic collaboration as mother and son, the legacies of the 1970s women's art movement on international contemporary art, what it's like to grow up as artist and son of a prominent feminist artist, and what drives and inspires each of the artists most.

I plan to post extracts from this conversation, and some of my photographs, in future entries.

If anyone in Los Angeles is interested in this please go along!     Ruth Skilbeck

BOOK LAUNCH AND RECEPTION Saturday June 11, 1-3pm, Free In honor of the final day of BROODWORK: It's About Time, Ben Maltz Gallery and BROODWORK:Creative Practice and Family Life are pleased to host the launch of  the book The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art. Published by Demeter Press and edited by Myrel Chernick and Jennie Klein The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art (May 2011) includes full color photographs and contributions from: Mary Kelly, Susan Suleiman, Mignon Nixon, Jane Gallop, Margaret Morgan, Andrea Liss, Aura Rosenberg, Barbara T. Smith, Ruth Skilbeck,  Sherry Millner, Ellen McMahon, Renée Cox, Gail Rebhan, Marion Wilson, Judy Glantzman, Denise Ferris, Youngbok Hong, Patricia Cué, Monica Mayer, Cheri Gaulke, and more. Details and ordering info: www.demeterpress.org/mword.ht Books will be available for sale and signing during reception. BROODWORK supports all discussion on the interweaving of creative practice and family life. Please join us  all on this day as we celebrate the multiple aspects of mothering in contemporary art through  History, Criticism, Theory, Artists’ Writings, Text/Image work, Interviews, and Visual Art. Gallery Location: Otis College of Art and Design, 9045 Lincoln Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90045  Gallery Hours: Tue-Sat 10am-5pm / Thu 10am-7pm. Closed Sundays, Mondays More Info: galleryinfo@otis.edu, 310.665.6905, www.otis.edu/benmaltzgallery                                                                The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art

edited by Myrel Chernick and Jennie Klein

"The M Word puts the most hallowed and fraught life relationship of all into the center of visual culture. Working through feminist ambivalence about motherhood (in all of its myriad and motley forms), this collection offers a crucial corrective to the dearth of discussions about life choices and living tensions for creative women in art and art discourse. With a range of key feminist artists, art historians, and theorists addressing topics from Mexican feminist art collectives to the Holocaust and mothering to queer mothering, this book presents a range of rigorous thinking in textual and visual form. In The M Word, maternity, as a state, an ideology, an "image," becomes the perfect pivot through which to examine women imagining ourselves into the sometimes incompatible roles of caring, care-taking, thinking, and making."

- Amelia Jones, Grierson Chair in Visual Culture, Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University.

"The M Word is a welcome addition to the fields of both maternal and art historical studies. In their strong introduction, Myrel Chernick and Jennie Klein provide a smart historical grounding for the intersections of mothering and visual art. The union of scholarly and narrative voices and the range of visual material included offer a compelling framework for this volume devoted to a significant and (always) timely topic."
- Rachel Epp Buller, editor of Reconciling Art and Mothering

"The central importance of this title lies in the richness of the work collected together, and in particular in its creation of a political archive of feminist artwork that engages with the maternal. It will be a key book in the area of feminist art theory. The wonderful interview with Mary Kelly is an important piece of art historical documentation in itself."
- Imogen Tyler, Senior Lecturer and Leverhulme Research Fellow, Sociology Department, Lancaster University

This important new collection has seven sections examining multiple aspects of mothering in contemporary art: History, Criticism, Theory, Artists’ Writings, Text/Image work, Interviews, and Visual Art.

This stunning book includes full colour photographs and contributions from: Mary Kelly, Susan Suleiman, Mignon Nixon, Jane Gallop, Margaret Morgan, Andrea Liss, Aura Rosenberg, Barbara T. Smith, Ruth Skilbeck, Sherry Millner, Ellen McMahon, Renée Cox, Gail Rebhan, Marion Wilson, Judy Glantzman, Denise Ferris, Youngbok Hong, Camille Billops, Patricia Cué, Monica Mayer, Cheri Gaulke, and more.

The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art

Contents

Introduction
Myrel Chernick and Jennie Klein

I. CONVERSATIONS AND QUESTIONS

On Love, Politics and Fallen Shoes: Margaret Morgan in Conversation with Mary Kelly
Mary Kelly and Margaret Morgan

Excerpts from Post-Partum Document
Mary Kelly

Ruth Skilbeck in Conversation with Mary Kelly and Kelly Barrie
Mary Kelly and Kelly Barrie

“Good Enough Mothers”: Myrel Chernick in Conversation with Susan Rubin Suleiman
Susan Rubin Suleiman and Myrel Chernick

My Mother’s Silver Pin
Susan Rubin Suleiman

The Body in Question: Rethinking Motherhood, Alterity and Desire
Andrea L

II. MATERNAL METAPHORS I

Maternal Metaphors I 
Curated by Myrel Chernick

Ellen McMahon
Monica Bock
Renée Cox
Judy Gelles
Gail Rebhan
Marion Wilson
Aura Rosenberg
Judy Glantzman

III. CONTEMPORARY ART AND THE MATERNAL: ARTICULATING THE MATERNAL METAPHOR IN FEMINIST ART

“We Don’t Talk About Mothers Here”: Seeking the Maternal in Holocaust Memoir and Art
Nancy Gerber

Epilogue: Spider
Mignon Nixon

Make Room for Mommy: Feminist Artists and My Maternal Musings
Michelle Moravec

¡Madres!
Mónica Mayer

S.O.S.: Searching for the Mother in the Family Album
Maria Assumpta Bassas Vila

The Coffins: Xerox Books
Barbara T. Smith

Visualizing Maternity in Contemporary Art: Race, Culture, Class
Jennie Klein

Home Truths
Margaret Morgan

Observations of a Mother
Jane Gallop and Dick Blau

IV. MATERNAL METAPHORS II, DOUBLEBIND

Maternal Metaphors ii
Curated by Myrel Chernick and Jennie Klen

Denise Ferris
Patricia Cué
Heather Gray
Cheri Gaulke and Sue Maberry
Youngbok Hong

Doublebind. kunst. kinder. karriere
Curated by Signe Theill

V. FINDING THE MATERNAL IN THE VISUAL FIELD: PRACTICE, NARRATIVES, IMAGES

On Mommas and Mothers
Danielle Abrams

The Studio Visit
Myrel Chernick

Time Passes
Myrel Chernick

Art Between Us
Ellen McMahon

Afterimage: A Journal of Making Art and Mothering Teens
Leslie Reid

Fragments
Margaret Morgan

Naming Nadja
Nadja Millner-Larsen and Sherry Millner

After Long Winter
with images from Fat and Blood (and how to make them) by Sarah E. Webb
Rachel Hall

Milk and Tears: Performing Maternity
Sarah E. Webb

(L)IF(E), AS IN MY ...
Silvia Ziranek

BabyLove: How My Infant Son Became the Other Man
Christen Clifford

Hidden Mother
Laura Larson

VI. THE M WORD, MOTHER/mother-*

Johanna Tuukkanen
Caroline Koebel
Jennifer Wroblewski

Mother/mother-*
curated by Jennifer Wroblewski

Rachel Howfield
Lindsay Page
Shelley Rae
Parisa Taghizadeh
Erika deVries
Kate Wilhelm

VII. AFTERWORD

Artist Mom
Tanya Llewellyn

Bibliography

Contributors