Archane's woof catalogue

Arachne’s Woof

Maria Berrio Maya Bloch Angela Fraleigh Elham Rokni Tschabalala Self Daniella Sheinman Betty Tompkins

Arachne's Woof February 4 - March 26, 2016 Curators: Howard Rutkowski and Mary Dinaburg Catalogue Editor: Meital Manor Text: Dr. Kathy Battista Design: Nelly Levin Photography: Ari Fischer (Elham Rokni); Youval Hay (Elham Rokni); Sigal Kolton (Maya Bloch) Reproduction credits: Maria Berrio courtesy of Praxis Gallery, New York; Betty Tompkins courtesy of Louis B. James Gallery, New York; Tschabalala Self courtesy of Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York Printing: Hodfos Rahav Ltd., Tel Aviv Š 2016 All rights reserved to Litvak Contemporary, Tel Aviv Measurements are given in centimeters, height x length

Litvak Contemporary 3 Shvil Hamifal Street, Tel Aviv 66535, ISRAEL +972-3-6959496 www.litvakcontemporary.com

Arachne's Woof

4|5

Arachne’s Woof: Women, Creativity and History Dr. Kathy Battista

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the goddess Minerva (the Greek deity of war and wisdom as well as the patron of weaving and embroidery) takes exception to the hubris of the mortal Arachne, a poor country girl who defiantly claims to be the superior weaver. Minerva, disguised as an old woman, appears to Arachne and suggests that the mortal offer forgiveness. When Arachne boastfully refuses, Minerva reveals herself and challenges the girl to a weaving contest. Minerva weaves a tapestry that depicts scenes of the greatness of the gods, including her own victory over Neptune. Arachne’s tapestry illustrates a much different point of view: a skillfully woven portrait of gods raping and deceiving humans. Minerva flies into a rage over Arachne’s skill and beats her, prompting the mortal to hang herself, and Minerva eventually turns Arachne into a spider, thus relegating her to a life of spinning webs.

Ovid writes of this moment:

Arachne’s hair flowed away and with them both (her) nose and ears, and (her) head becomes very small, she is also small in her whole body; slender fingers cling on (her) side in place of legs, (her) belly occupies the rest: from which, nevertheless, that (girl) lets out a thread, and the spider works (her) ancient looms.

Minerva wins this epic tale and hopes that when humans would learn about Arachne’s fate, they would revere the mighty gods, In other versions of the story Minerva wins the tapestry contest with a far superior work, causing Arachne to be ashamed; Minerva takes pity on Arachne and turns her into spider so that she can continue to spin and weave for infinity. In both versions, the reader finds the Manichean theme of man versus god, the capriciousness of fate, as well as the internal struggles of the creative process.

Weaving has for centuries been considered a female occupation, and primarily a domestic talent, before being developed on an industrial scale. Fabric is produced by the interlacing of the warp, or the vertical component, and the woof, which comprises the horizontal filling. Weaving and embroidery were Maria Berrio El Jardin de mi corazon, 2013, detail See p. 13

originally associated with women and hence, craft, and separated from the refined status of fine art. Rozsika Parker’s breakthrough 1984 book The

Subversive Stitch reevaluated this craft, which had been relegated to the pejorative “women’s work” category, and seen as inferior to the traditional fine arts of painting and sculpture. Feminists responded to this challenge by incorporating stitching and craft into many of their practices. Today weaving and embroidery are used by mainstream artists as disparate as Louise Bourgeois, Tracey Emin, Francesco Vezzoli, and Andrea Zittel.

Weaving is also slang for the telling of stories: for example, a person is said to weave a web of deceit. The artists in this exhibition, like Arachne, tell stories that are bold and unapologetic. Although they come from far-flung parts of the world, they share common ground in creating their work without regard for commercial trends or mainstream expectations. Their creative processes are each anchored in traditional image making; however, their practices are idiosyncratic and move beyond the proverbial brush applying paint to canvas. From printing and stitching to burning, pouring, spraying, or using found imagery, each artist’s creative process is unique, and yet intersects and overlaps with others within the exhibition.

Elham Rokni’s The Wedding, 2015 is the sole video in “Arachne’s Woof.” In this twelve-minute piece Rokni employs found and constructed footage, along with spoken narrative and subtitles, in an attempt to discover the precise date of her parent’s marriage, which neither could remember. Rokni, a Jewish Iranian whose family relocated to Tel Aviv in 1989, went on a quest for the details that were so hazy in her family’s recollection. The Wedding begins with shots of her older parents, dancing together, at her cousin’s wedding in Israel in 2015. The bulk of the piece, however, uses footage from their actual wedding in 1978, shot by her uncles. The wedding celebration was hosted at home because of riots that were taking place in the city. Each person that Rokni asks, including her mother, father, and uncles, has differing reasoning for the date they propose; each of these dates coincides with an important date in Iranian history, including the student takeover of the American Embassy. The artist finally finds the Ketubah, or traditional prenuptial agreement in a traditional Jewish marriage, which reveals a precise date; however, her mother tells her they were married “six or seven days” after the signing of the Ketubah, signaling the artist’s ongoing frustration from the inconsistent reports. The Wedding is witness to the artist’s attempt to weave

a narrative of family history through clouded memories and long displaced documents.

The Wedding is poignant in its images of a pre-revolutionary Iran, where guests are dressed in fashionable clothing of the time and women are not covered. The couple and their guests dance, kiss and revel in the occasion, actions that are not typical in depictions of Iranian culture today. Rokni’s accompanying paintings, in acrylic on paper, are rendered in black and white and depict in reverse silhouette her parents dancing, with her uncle Parviz shining a light on them for the purposes of photography. The artist had asked the trio to reconstruct the scene for her video during her uncle’s visit to Israel in 2015. Black Eclipse #5, 2015 is drawn from one frame of this video. Three

Eclipse works abstract this frame, which becomes more and more obscured to only a point of light, suggestive of the blackout that her uncle’s actions brought about. The title of this series is suggestive of lunar activity, referring to both the passage of time as well as her mother’s menstruation, which is used in futility as a gauge for determining the date of the marriage in the video. As a whole, Rokni’s work illustrates how far Iranian women including the artist, who left their homeland, have traveled, both physically and metaphorically. Like the myth of Arachne, this tale of her parents marriage and subsequent emigration could be told in several ways; however, in any iteration it suggests both the sadness of a lost motherland and a dislocation from the past, as well as the changing and ultra conservative bent towards women in contemporary Iran. Like other artists in this exhibition, Rokni’s work reflects themes of diaspora and the persistence of cultural identity.

Tschabalala Self has created two ovoid works, which can be considered as a diptych or as individual panels. Each contains a variety of elements and processes, including stamping, printmaking, stitching and sewing forms to the canvases. Eyes That See I, 2015 includes the artist’s trademark eye forms, printed on the canvas; these forms, in their regularized pattern, riff on the Dutch wax textiles produced across the African continent. Random black markings, which can be read as eyelashes or hair, are created by the artist using the pressure of a printing press, and are also reminiscent of African culture. In the center is a head seen in profile, stitched to the canvas with red thread. On the head one exaggerated eye looks to the right and is contextualized with the other forms found in the work. Eyes That See II, 2015 contains the same eye shapes but seen above a grid made of stitched

threads. Here another profile looks to the left, as if creating a dialogue with the other anonymous head. Taken together, the two ovals look like a pair of eyes, with the faces transformed into pupils, together forming a metatheater of the individual concerns within the work.

Is Self’s diptych a self-portrait (no pun intended)? Her work may be seen in the legacy of feminist creativity. Born in Harlem and now living and working in New Haven, CT, Self’s debt to 1970s painters including Audrey Flack and Sylvia Sleigh intersects with the cultural specificity of the African American diaspora, her personal heritage. Self’s practice, which sees several layers of process, includes painting, printmaking, stitching and dyeing. In this work she is literally weaving threads into a grid, as well as sewing faces and their individual elements on to the canvases. Like Arachne, she is challenging the viewer: confronting notions of the tradition of painting as a Eurocentric, white male legacy, which has been literally mythologized in the annals of history. The insertion of elements of African culture also poses a threat to the status quo: she subverts the traditional materials of painting, substituting stitching and printing for oil on canvas. Self’s use of the oval, so typical of portraiture from eighteenth century Dutch to Colonial American and Portrait Miniatures, is literally turned on its side: here the ovals are rotated and seen as eyes rather than vertical compositional structures.

Daniella Sheinman, an artist based in Tel Aviv, whose work has rejected color for the past twenty-one years. Sheinman also creates portraiture of female subject matter, albeit more specific than Self’s, for this exhibition, presenting three works that begin as small black and white drawings that are transferred to ceramic painting on glass. Untitled (My Mona Lisa I, II and III) are portraits of her granddaughter created in 2015. All three works use an interior oval compositional structure to visually contain the portraits of the young woman: in each piece she is seen drawn, in ceramic printing on glass panels, from the bust up in black on a white surface, in the same pose as Leonardo da Vinci’s infamous heroin. While in Untitled (My Mona Lisa II and III) the viewer sees the woman as timeless, Untitled (My Mona Lisa I) includes the young woman wearing a logo sweatshirt, signaling her existence within a contemporary era. The titles are a nod to the artist’s affection for her progeny, elevating her from a typical young woman to one of the most mysterious and captivating figures in the history of art.

In each work the oval structures are disrupted by an overlay of erratic lines that may be read as web-like in places and landscape elements in others. In addition to obscuring some of the facial details in the works, this overlay of abstract lines disrupts the discreteness of the oval shaped portraits. The oval portraits are direct references to both the history of portrait and miniature painting, as mentioned above. Sheinman seems to call her subjects from another historical epoch, suggesting these are women of importance; however, she disturbs the sanctity of the portraiture with the web of lines, which is a typical motif of her work in painting as well as sculpture. Like Rauschenberg’s erased de Kooning, she obliterates her own handiwork, suggesting the process of reworking and rethinking the composition. One literally sees the angst and vulnerability of the creative process in the works— the ebb and flow of creative confidence and deflation. Using what appears at first to be straightforward portraiture, the artist tells the story of the creative process, as well as the story of women’s achievement, both past and present.

New York and Pennsylvania based artist Angela Fraleigh’s work has a similarly ambivalent relationship with the history of art and the representation of women. Her paintings, at once astonishingly skillful in their meticulous renderings of figures, are also more expressive in places, ultimately signaling a mix of control and chaos. Fraleigh adopts the poses of female figures from Baroque and Rococo masters and elevates them from their previous roles as submissive women or side players to the main protagonists in her tableau.

You weren’t haunted those two days, 2013 depicts a woman seen lying on her back, almost floating amidst a deep greenish black background. Her fair hair and skin contrasts with both the moss like background as well as the pink slip she wears. The composition calls to mind Sir John Everett Millais’s

Ophelia from 1851-2, where the Shakespearean character is seen drowning to her death in a cold Danish river. But Fraleigh’s female protagonist is alive, eyes open, seemingly lost in reverie. In Fraleigh’s typical style, her process is multifaceted, which is evidenced on the canvas: hyperrealistic detail is seen in the hair, eyes, nose, mouth, and teeth while her shoulders and chest devolve into areas of abstraction and experimentation. Likewise, touches of white paint, on her cheek and in the background, signal the artist’s creative process, which ranges from the precision noted above to more expressionistic patches of mark making.

You’ll see me from a trillion miles away, 2014 features the same tidal struggle with the past. Here four figures are seen in what appears to be an almost limbic, hallucinogenic state. The entire foreground and middleground of the painting is consumed with areas of pigment that remind of Polke’s abstract, hallucinogenic canvases. Swirling colors are juxtaposed with deep greens, suggesting a forest setting. Meticulous small details like stenciled leaves contrast with the larger areas of pigment applied in looser and freer gestures. The figures in this scene seem to emerge from the large swathes of color: three men and one female are seen in some kind of consort. The female figure is fair and contrasts with the man seen to the right, who appears to be a Native American Indian. Both are seen without clothes. While it is not unusual to see a nude female, it is atypical to see a topless male in a classical painting. Fraleigh is defying the history of art that she exists within, challenging accepted norms of nude versus clothed, figuration and abstraction, male versus female power structures, as well as narrative and expression.

Maya Bloch’s Untitled (The Viewers), 2013 has a similar ambivalence as Fraleigh’s group scene. In this painting we see in the foreground four figures, painted almost entirely in silhouette against a cobalt blue wall and three figures in the background. The three figures that inhabit the background are more articulated, yet still sketchy and undefined, reminiscent of Francis Bacon’s treatment of the human figure. The title suggests viewers and indeed the figures in the background seem to inhabit a painting on a wall; however, the foreground figures, rather than looking at that work, look forward, catching the actual viewer’s eye. Thus the title of the painting refers to us rather than the viewers within the canvas, asking us to project meaning into the work.

Like Sheinman, albeit of the generation of Self and Berrio, although originally from Tel Aviv, Bloch lives and works in New York. Once again we see that the artists within the exhibition traverse miles and cultures through similar techniques and references. In Untitled (3 Figures), 2011 Bloch employs the same type of portraiture as in The Viewers: figures melt into each other and contain a ghostlike presence that owes in equal measure to Munch and Surrealist artists. In this canvas three figures seem to be almost intertwined.

Psychologically it is fraught with conjecture: is it a lovers’ triangle? Is their intimacy based on familial or sexual connection? Rather than spell this out of

the viewer Bloch instead leaves one in the same limbic state as the characters in her paintings, never capitulating to narrative or resolved meanings.

Maria Berrio’s works share Bloch’s Surreal approach as well as Fraleigh’s homage and resistance to the legacy of art history. Like Self, Barrio collages elements of paper, sequin, and other materials, as well as paint, to create her otherworldly compositions. El jardin de mi Corazon, 2013 depicts a female, who appears to stand within and atop of a tree, surrounded by various creatures: a seated monkey on an adjacent branch that makes eye contact with the viewer; a smaller scale black figure that could be human or metaphysical slumps over the female’s shoulders; and over scale birds cohabit the tree and are seen in the background of the painting. The image calls to mind both the magical realism of writers such as Gabriel García Marquez, as well as the surreal self-portraiture of Frida Kahlo and the naïve exoticism of Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian scenes. Born in Bogota, Columbia, the legacy of Latin American painting and literature, where humans and animals at times morph into fantastical creatures, bears mentioning alongside her work; however, having attended art school and now living in New York, the references may also be read as wider than any cultural specificity.

The Harvest, 2014 is another intriguing composition that features two female figures: one is lying prone on a table, covered with various elements, while the other is seen standing behind the table, dressed in ethnic style clothing with flowers in her hair. The entire composition is busy with objects and decorative elements: from candles, framed Guadalupe Madonna pictures and skulls to an abundance of flowers and a framed Geisha portrait hanging in the background.

The figure on the table is impossibly contorted, with legs kicked up as only someone lying on their stomach could manage; however, she is lying on her back with the standing figure arranging something on her stomach. The suggestion is that the woman on the table is a sacrifice or devotional object; rather than a nefarious connotation, though, the feeling that she imparts is one of giving life as witnessed in the title of the work. In this piece, Berrio’s use of patterned Japanese paper creates an almost hallucinogenic clash of motifs that adds to the energy of the scene. Berrio is from the same emerging generation as Self. Living and working between New York and Buenos Aires, while her work contains different themes, it is empathetic to Self’s, where mythical female protagonists claim their power and confront a viewer.

Betty Tompkins is an artist who has never feared challenging the status quo. The senior stateswoman in the show, Tompkins, who lives and works in downtown New York, has a cult following for her realistic renderings of pornographic scenes shown in intimate detail. Like many feminist artists of her generation she refused to accept the tyranny of the imagery of centuries of male painting that depicts idealized female nudes. The classic “female nude” is subverted in her magnified paintings of body parts in sexual actions.

Her work in this exhibition is typical of a more visually restrained and smaller scale than other bodies of her work, but is nevertheless as impactful. In this exhibition she presents seven small text paintings each feature a word or phrase that is used to describe a female, including BOX, DAME, GIRLY GIRL, VIXEN, QUEEN BEE, WIFE and BETTY. This is part of the artist’s ongoing project in which she solicits viewers to contribute words or phrases to her lexicon of female slang.

Tompkins works, all from 2015, allow the artist to play and by her own account “have a lot of fun”. In Girly Girl #2 she pits plain text and color against each other; in Vixen #1 she wrote the word over and over on the canvas so that the composition is just a repetition of itself; in Betty #3 and Box #3 created the painting by spraying through her fingers in different ways, including also through lace; in Dame #2 she emulated Richter’s squeegee paintings using a six-inch comb. In the larger series that these derive from, which include hundreds of these miniature paintings, she riffs on Willem DeKooning, Jasper Johns and other iconic artists. While these paintings don’t depict the female figure, they conjure it in the mind of the viewer using various techniques of abstraction and text. More diminutive and playful than her large scale anatomical paintings, these create an equal impact with their commentary on language and representation.

The artists in “Arachne’s Woof” span generations as well as continents, yet they share a similar approach to the history of art as well as the creative process.

Situated within the legacy of a feminist trajectory, each artist challenges the representation of the figure within the academic tradition of painting and sculpture. Their challenges, like Arachne’s, are based on an unflinching belief in the creative process, from painting and collage to video and printmaking.

Mario Berrio, Maya Bloch, Angela Fraleigh, Elham Rokni, Tschabalala Self, Daniella Sheinman and Betty Tompkins form a tightly woven group that suggest both the founding and the legacy of female artists’ resistance.

They resist expectation and traditional roles within compositional structures, as well as the tradition of white male painting. Cross generational and across cultures, “Arachne’s Woof� reminds us that nothing risked is nothing gained and that the epic themes of darkness versus light and figure versus abstraction, are as relevant today as they were in the classical era.

Works

Maria Berrio El Jardin de mi corazon, 2013 Mixed media on canvas 244x203

Maria Berrio The Harvest, 2014 Collage with Japanese papers and watercolor paint 183x218

Maya Bloch Untitled (The Viewers), 2013 Acrylic and collage on canvas 155x135

Maya Bloch Untitled (3 Figures), 2011 Acrylic on canvas 119x109

Angela Fraleigh You’ll see me from a trillion miles away, 2014 Oil on canvas 122x152

Angela Fraleigh You weren’t haunted those two days, 2013 Oil on canvas 91.5x122

Elham Rokni 4 frames #2, 2015 Acrylic on paper 75x81

Elham Rokni Black Eclipse #5, 2015 Monoprint, acrylic and spray paint on paper 42x60

Elham Rokni White Flashlight Eclipse #4, 2015 Monoprint, acrylic and spray paint on paper 30x40

Full Paint Eclipse, 2015 Monoprint, acrylic and spray paint on paper 30x40

Paint Eclipse, 2015 Monoprint, acrylic on paper 30x40

Elham Rokni The Wedding, 2015 HD 12:30 minutes

Tschabalala Self Eyes That See I, 2015 Oil, fabric and pigment on canvas 93 wide (oval)

Tschabalala Self Eyes That See II, 2015 Oil, fabric and pigment on canvas 93 wide (oval)

Daniella Sheinman Untitled (My Mona Lisa I), 2015 Digital ceramic print on glass panel 75x50

Daniella Sheinman Untitled (My Mona Lisa II), 2015 Digital ceramic print on glass panel 75x50

Daniella Sheinman Untitled (My Mona Lisa III), 2015 Digital ceramic print on glass panel 75x50

Betty Tompkins Betty #3, 2015 Acrylic on canvas 10x10

Betty Tompkins Box #3, 2015 Acrylic on canvas 10x10

Dame #2, 2015 Acrylic on canvas 10x10

Betty Tompkins Girly Girl #2, 2015 Acrylic on canvas 10x10

Queen Bee #1, 2015 Acrylic on canvas 10x10

Betty Tompkins Vixen #1, 2015 Acrylic on canvas 10x10

Wife #1, 2015 Acrylic on canvas 10x10

Artist Biographies

Maria Berrio Born in Bogota, Columbia, 1982. Lives in New York.

2007

M.F.A., School of School of Visual Arts, New York

2004

B.F.A., Parsons School of Design, New York

2003

We May See the Winds Together, Florida International University, Miami

2002

Metamorphosis, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York

Solo Exhibitions 2015

The Harmony of the Spheres, Praxis Gallery, New York

2013

Dream Gardens, Praxis Gallery, New York

2012

Of Dreams and Hurricanes, Praxis Gallery, New York

2009

Between Humans and Animals, Kokoro Gallery, San Francisco

2008

Luz, Sensei Gallery, New York

2006

Mama, Reid Gallery, Brooklyn

Group Exhibitions 2015

CUT N MIX, El Museo del Barrio, New York

2013

Raza con “A”, Gallery Space at Wagner New York University, New York Carpe Diem: A Latin American Art Exhibition, Philadelphia City Hall, Philadelphia

2012

Colorin Colorado, Praxis Gallery, New York Two Year Retrospective, Kokoro Gallery, San Francisco The Architecture of Devotion, Brooklyn

2011

The Last Supper Salon, Brooklyn Animals, The Green and Blue Gallery, Chester, Vermont The Book Show, School of Visual Arts Gallery, New York

2010

One Year Retrospective, Kokoro Gallery, San Francisco Wall Bought, The Loading Dock Gallery, Brooklyn Friends of Friends, Garfo Art Center, Salt Lake City

2009

Home is Where the Heart Is, Brooklyn Thesis Show, School of Visual Arts Gallery, New York

2007

Secret Lives, Art Director’s Club Gallery, New York The Sins in the Hands of the Artists, Chelsea Art Museum, New York

2005

ArtFusion, Parson’s School of Design, New York

Maya Bloch Born in Beer Sheva, Israel, 1978. Lives in Brooklyn, New York.

2004

M.A., Art History, Tel Aviv University

Restart, Tavi Dresdner Gallery, Tel Aviv

2001

B.A., Art History, Tel Aviv University

Start 2, St-Art, Tel Aviv Daylight, Nechushtan Complex, Tel Aviv

Solo Exhibitions 2013

Here you Are, Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York

2012

This is Not Happening, Sommer Contemporary Gallery, Tel Aviv Art Los Angeles Contemporary (with Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York), Santa Monica

2011

2010

Narcissus’ Reflections, P8 Gallery, Tel Aviv 2008

Mr. Guskin, Balcony, Art TLV 08, Tel Aviv

Feels like Home, Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York

Educated, Hakita Gallery, Tel Aviv

Waiting Room, Thierry Goldberg Projects, New York

Connected Unconscious, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), New York

Anna Veronica, Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa

2008

Maya Bloch, Tavi Dresdner Gallery, Tel Aviv

Group Exhibitions 2015

You Don’t Bring Me Flowers, 68 Projects, Berlin

2013

Rothfeld Collection, American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC Chicken or Beef?, The Hole, New York Dorian Gray, Second Guest Gallery, New York Facial Expressionism: Immanence Envisaged, Cerritos College Art Gallery, Los Angeles Artis at NADA Art Fair, Miami Beach

Solar Eclipse, Noga Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv Abdominal Pain, St-Art, Tel Aviv Shesh-Besh, Petach Tikva Museum of Art, Petach Tikva, Israel 2010

Lo–Li–Ta, Office in Tel Aviv Gallery, Tel Aviv

White, project room, Tavi Dresdner Gallery, Tel Aviv

2009

2011

A Hard Day’s Night, Contemporary by Golconda Gallery, Tel Aviv

Hello Stranger, Thierry Goldberg Projects, New York

Fabricated Life, San Gallo Art Station Gallery, Florence, Italy

2012

2009

Traces: The 4th Drawing Biennial, Artists’ House, Jerusalem Escape Artist, Here Art Gallery, New York Girls Just Want to Have Funds, PPOW Gallery, New York Batsheva’s Studio, Marlborough Gallery, New York

Angela Fraleigh Born in Beaufort, South Carolina, 1976. Lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania and New York.

2003

M.F.A., in Painting/ Printmaking, Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT

1998

B.F.A., in Painting Magna Cum Laude, Boston University, Boston

The Sweetest Taboo, Red Arrow Contemporary, Dallas 2011-2012 Collective Intelligence: Early-Human Narratives, Platform Gallery, IHC, University of California, Santa Barbara

Synthetic Supports: Plastic is the New Paper, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Selected Solo Exhibitions 2016

Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York

2015

Lost in the Light, Vanderbilt Mansion, Hyde Park, New York

2014

Ghosts in the Sunlight, Inman Gallery, Houston

2011

by the time I tell you It will all be forgotten, Inman Gallery, Houston

2008 2007

2009-2010 Do I know you?, Inman Gallery Houston

Some Serious Business, Fowler Center, Bethlehem 2008

Transfigure, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City

far as my eyes could see, University of the Arts, Philadelphia

2007

and I would shine in answer/ being/ without becoming, PPOW Gallery, New York

The Bees: something swarming something, Brooklyn Fireproof, Brooklyn

2006

Reality Unchecked, P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York

not one girl it think/ who looks on the light of the sun/ will ever have wisdom/ like this, Inman Gallery, Houston even, Heimbold Visual Art Center, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York

Luck of the Draw 5, Diverseworks, Houston Drawing Inside/Out, Lawndale Art Center, Houston 2005

if not, winter, James Harris Gallery, Seattle 2006

there I still my thirst, Women and Their Work, Austin then, for just a moment, H. Paty Eiffe Gallery, Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

2005

forever is not enough, Inman Gallery, Houston

Selected Group Exhibitions 2015

Learning by Doing: 25 Years of the Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

(Em)Power Dynamics: Exploring the Modes of Female Empowerment and Representation in America, The Gateway Project Newark, New Jersey

New Texas Acquisitions, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Artists for Tsunami Relief Auction, Phillips de Pury & co., New York

CORE Exhibition, Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston

2002-2003 Diamonds fur Kiss Mom & Dad Birds, MFA Thesis Exhibition, Yale University Art Gallery 2004

CAA Exhibition, Hunter College, New York Second Year Graduate Student Show, Yale University Arts Gallery 2000-2001 Black Lab Gallery, Seattle

Un-real, David Richard Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico

The Art Bar, Seattle

Speculum Speculorum-Mirror of Mirrors, Elizabeth Foundation, New York

Zeitgeist, Seattle

2014

Higher Learning, CUNY at Lehman College, New York

2013

Angela Fraleigh and Davin Watne: New Work, Rachael Cozad, Kansas City

1998-1999 Concord Art Gallery, Concord, Massachusetts Boston Art Gallery, Boston George Sherman Union Gallery, Boston

The Tales They Told Us, Lexington Art League, Lexington, Kentucky

Elham Rokni Born in Tehran, Iran, 1980. Lives in Tel Aviv, Israel.

2010

M.F.A., Bezalel Academy, Tel Aviv

2007

B.F.A., Art Department, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem

On the Road to Nowhere, Ashdod Art Museum, Ashdod 2010

Light and Shadows - The Story of Iran and the Jews, Beit Hatfutsot, Tel Aviv

Solo Exhibitions 2016

Down Under, Petach Tikva Museum of Art, Petach Tikva

Shulamit Gallery, Venice, California

The Wedding, 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, California

In Between, Ashdod Art Museum, Ashdod 2009

Yussef-Abad, New Gallery in Höhmannhaus, Augsburg, Germany 2014

Yousef-Abad, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv

2013

Untitled, Artist’s House, Jerusalem

Five Frames Per Second, Janco Dada Museum, Ein Hod, Israel

2010

Clavileño, Bezalel Academy, Tel Aviv

Selected Group Exhibitions 2016

ISLAMIC ART NOW: CONTEMPORARY ART OF THE MIDDLE EAST, PART II, LACMA, Los Angeles

2015

MERCAZ, Rosenbach Contemporary Gallery, Jerusalem

2014

Potent Wilderness,The Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery, Tel Aviv Until You Get Out of My Voice, Ashdod Art Museum, Ashdod, Israel Traces, Beyond Paper, The Biennale for Drawing in Israel, Artist’s House, Jerusalem

2012

Light and Shadows, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles Winners 2011, Petach Tikva Museum of Art, Petach Tikva, Israel Behind Landscape, The H2 - Centre for Contemporary Art, Augsburg, Germany Search Engine, Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv Certified Copy, Beit Hageffen Gallery, Haifa, Israel The Secret Eight or the Enigma of the Haunted House, Hissin 27, Tel Aviv

GIGUK, Gie.en VideoArt Festival, Germany PAM Festival, Senigallia, Italy Crosstalk Video Art Festival, Budapest

2008

Wola Festival, Warsaw, Poland ATA Film & Video Festival, San Francisco

Dot Full-Stop, Fresh Paint 6 - Promising Artist Exhibition, Tel Aviv 2012

Indisplace, Gal-On Gallery, Tel Aviv

International Women’s Film Festival, Rehovot, Israel Olimpolice Festival, Greece Nisuui Kelim #6, Tel Aviv 2007

Displacements ~ Immigration at a Young Age, Museum of Bat-Yam, Bat Yam, Israel Final Exhibition, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem

Tschabalala Self Born in New York, New York, 1990. Lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

2015

M.F.A., Painting/Printmaking, Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut

2012

B.A., Studio Arts, Bard College, Annadale-on-Hudson, New York

2008

Radiant Minds, Queens Museum of Art, Queens

2007

Admission $2.00, Whitney at Altria, New York

Solo Exhibitions 2016

Solo Project, T293 Naples, Naples, Italy

2015

Tropicana, The Cabin LA, Los Angeles Out of Body, Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York Head Over Heels, Schur-Narula, Berlin

Group Exhibitions 2016

New Genealogies, Yale School of Art Green Gallery, New Haven

Duplify, Kate Werble Gallery, New York

2015

Berg Matthams Self & Weaver, Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York A Constellation, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York The New New, Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles THATS ON ME, Paris Blues, New York Yale MFA Painting and Printmaking Graduates 2015, Garis & Hahn, New York 2,015 But Who’s Counting, Yale School of Art Green Gallery, New Haven

2014

13 Artists, 24/6 Space, New Haven Swimming Pool, 24/6 Space, New Haven

2013

For Ed: Splendor in the Grass with Olympic Lad & Lass, Yale School of Art Green Gallery, New Haven

Women Love the World, Lounchpad, Brooklyn Encounters, Harlem School of the Arts, Harlem 2012

SUGGARHILL, Essie Green Galleries, Harlem Edge Control, UBS Exhibition Center, Red Hook, New York NEO XL, Warehouse, Long Island City

Daniella Sheinman Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, 1947. Lives in Ramat Gan, Israel

Selected Solo Exhibitions 2012

String Line, Litvak Gallery, Tel Aviv

2009

A Line of Tohu – An Installation, The Open Museum, Teffen Industrial Park

2007

The East Wing Project, Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, Ramat Gan

2003

The Meir Nitzan Performing Arts Center, Rishon Lezion, Israel The Municipal Art Gallery, Netanya, Israel Artspace Gallery, Jerusalem Beck Science Center, Jerusalem

2002

Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, Israel

A Journey into the Depths of Dream, Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan, Israel 1999

Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center, Tel Aviv

Meaning of Life, Ludwig Museum of Modern Art, Koblenz, Germany 1998

Interior Space, Sotheby’s, Tel Aviv

1997

Venus Rising from the Sea, The National Maritime Museum, Haifa

1996

Interior Space, Bayerische Vereinsbank, Frankfurt, Germany

1994

Daniella Sheinman – Recent Works, Haifa Museum of Art

1991

Daniella Sheinman, Amalia Arbel Gallery, Rishon Lezion

1990

Daniella Sheinman, Nelly Aman Gallery, Tel Aviv

1987

Daniella Sheinman, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv

Selected Group Exhibitions 2008

Black and White, Mark Gallery, Englewood, New Jersey

2007

Markers VI: Divine in Tent, Art Life Gallery, Venice; Unternehmenspark, Kassel; Orensanz Center for the Arts, New York Bienalle Internazionale dell’Arte Contemporanea, Florence

2005

Human Landscape: From the Museum’s Collection, Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa

2002

Municipal Museum, Yavne, Israel

2000

Top 2000, The Holiday of Holidays Festival, Haifa

1999

Open House, Beit Hagefen, Arab-Jewish Center, Haifa

1998

60 Horse-Power Plus, Beit Hagefen, Arab-Jewish Center, Haifa

1990

Artist’s House, Tel Aviv

1988

Artist’s House, Tel Aviv

Betty Tompkins Born in Washington, D.C., 1945. Lives in New York.

Selected Solo Exhibitions 2016

WOMEN Words Phrases Stories, Flag Art Foundation, New York

2015

BHQ FUG, Real Ersatz, New York

2014

Art Basel Feature, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Basel, Switzerland

Sex, Money, Power, Maison Particuliere, Brussels, Belgium Skin Trade, PPOW Gallery, New York Elements, Rudiments, Principles, Boston University Art Gallery, Boston 2012

In the Pink, Joe Sheftel Gallery, New York

2012

Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels

Screw You, Susan Inglett Gallery, New York

2011

Galerie Andrea Caratsch, Zurich

Dark Garnaal, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Ixelles, Belgium

2009

Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York

2008

Lawrimore Project, Seattle

2007

Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York

Invitation to a Voyage, Algus Greenspon Gallery, New York

2006

Galerie Andrea Caratsch, Zurich

Narrative of the Perverse II, Jancar Gallery, New York

2005

Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York

2002

Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York

2000

Egizio’s Project, New York

1998

Juniata Museum of Art, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania

1994

Fridholm Fine Arts, Asheville, North Carolina

2008

How to Cook a Wolf: Part 1, Dinter Fine Art, New York

1991

White Room, White Columns, New York

2007

La Plaissir au Dessin, Musee de Beaux Arts, Lyon, France

2011

2010

The Shell (Landscapes, Portraits and Shapes), Almine Rech Gallery, Paris

2009

Into Position, Baurnmarkt, Vienna, Austria 2006

Exquisite Corpse - Cadavre Exquis, Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York Uncertain States of America, Serpentine Gallery, London, traveling exhibition

Viewer Discretion…Children of Bataille, Haller Gallery, New York

2005

La Beauté de L’Enfer, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium

Venganza, Armada, Milan, Italy

2004

[Untitled/Nudes], Printed Matter, New York

A Chromatic Loss, Bortolami Gallery, New York Aftershock, Edelman Fine Arts, New York Corpus, Zacheta Museum, Warsaw, Poland Rear Window Treatment, Louis B. James Gallery, New York The Last Brucennial, Bruce High Quality Foundation, New York

2013

elles@centrepompidou, Centre Pompidou, Paris Naked! Size Matters, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York

Word by Word, Luxembourg & Dayan, Luxembourg & Dayan, London

2014

Visible Vagina, Francis Naumann Gallery, New York Consider the Oyster, James Graham & Sons, New York

Selected Group Exhibitions 2015

Grissaille, Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery, New York

Independents, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark

Nouvelles Acquisitions, ouevres contemporaines, Centre Pompidou, Paris 2003

It Happened Tomorrow, Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France

2002

Manhattan Skylines, Museum of the City of New York, New York

2001

Disarming Beauty: Venus DeMilo in Contemporary Art, Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida

2000

Collection Insights – Recent Acquisitions, Islip Art Museum, East Islip, New York

1999

Size Matters, Gale Gates et al., Brooklyn

1997

Lions, National Jewish Museum, Washington, D.C.

1996

25 Years of Feminism, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey

1995

The Art of the Emblem, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, New Jersey

1992

The Living Object: The Art Collection of Ellen H. Johnson, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio

1990

Brut 90, White Columns, New York

1989

Nature of the Beast, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York

1988

Drawings, Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, Connecticut

1987

Floating Values, Hallwalls, Buffalo, New York

1985

American Art, American Woman, Stamford Museum, Stamford, Connecticut

1984

Animals, Animals, Animals, Stamford Museum, Stamford

1981

Ikon / Logos, Alternative Museum, New York

1979

By the Sea, Queens Museum, Flushing Meadow, New York

1973

Warren Bendek Gallery, New York

For inquiries please contact - info@litvakcontemporary.com