Dear Fisher Museum Friends,
This week we are spotlighting just a few of the many amazing women artists whose works are part of the Fisher's permanent collection. We were inspired to tell these stories right now, both by the #5WomenArtists campaign created by the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and because of the recent centennial anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment (August 18th). We are especially excited to introduce you to a recent Fisher acquisition, a series of works by Carla Jay Harris!
Yours in inspiring women,
Selma, Kay, Raphael, Juan, Stephanie, Maria, and Brigid
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The original impetus for Blacklist began with a student's question. The student first learned about the Blacklist and the "Hollywood Ten" in the Filmic Writing Program in the School of Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California, and questioned why he had never before heard about this dark period in our nation's history. Spurred by the knowledge that few members of younger generations were familiar with this era, a committee of the writing program's own faculty (several of whom were blacklisted or graylisted), film historians, art museum curators, and administrators was formed.
A roster of artists working in the field of public art were invited to submit proposals. The committee’s final choice of artist Jenny Holzer was unanimous. Holzer created a sculpture garden with a circle of benches featuring the "Hollywood Ten" surrounded by the full text of the First Amendment. The entry paths leading into the garden are studded with quotations by people affected by blacklisting. The installation was completed in 1999.
Now, as then, the Fisher Museum wants Jenny Holzer's Blacklist to encourage contemplation, reflection, and wide-ranging discussions of the First Amendment, public debate, and meanings of freedom.
Experience Blacklist virtually
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CARLA JAY HARRIS
Snake Bearers
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*New Acquisition*
Carla Jay Harris is a Glendale, CA-based artist whose works document intellectual, emotional and psychological environments. Her work mixes archival, documented and imagined imagery which transgress unwritten social laws and encourages viewers to look differently and imaginatively at their own existence.
Carla's work is an exciting new addition to our collection! In 2019, our Director Selma Holo was discussing artists whose work would enhance the Fisher's collection with a former student who is a staff member at CAAM. After a studio visit, Selma and Kay (Fisher's Associate Director) were enthralled with Carla's haunting and beautiful works and began the process of purchasing the Snake Bearers series.
Learn more about Carla Jay Harris and her art practice in this recent interview.
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SELMA GUISANDE
Las Partes del Todo y Desmembramiento Suspendido
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Selma Guisande is a Mexican artist who creates 3-dimensional works, both large-scale and small, which often explore the body as a metaphor by means of which we place ourselves in a greater, if relatively broken, society.
Selma Holo met Selma Guisande in Oaxaca, Mexico while she was researching her book on Oaxaca, a city that lives and breathes art. She was one of the younger artists breaking away from the more folkloric style that Oaxaca had become known for at that time. As her work grew more and more feminist and conceptual, Selma Holo felt it more imperative that Fisher's collection include work by Guisande. Her work was acquired by Fisher in 2006.
Check out our recent blog post about Selma Guisande.
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CHRISTINA FERNANDEZ
Maria's Great Expedition
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Christina Fernandez is a Los Angeles-based photographer who explores her personal connection to Los Angeles in her body of works. The city and its environs are featured as an important backdrop for her works that address labor, gender, migration, and her Mexican – American identity.
Her series Maria's Great Expedition dramatizes the life of her grandmother, who left Mexico at 14, worked as a fruit picker and a maid and before eventually settling in California. The artist herself takes the role of her ancestor in each photograph "with results that blend Cindy Sherman masquerade, television docudrama and tenderly recaptured history." *
This series, now considered a classic in the archives of Chicano art, was purchased in 2004 through an acquisition fund that allowed the Museum Studies cohort to purchase new art for the Fisher's permanent collection. The works will be on loan (likely in 2022) for a survey exhibition of Fernandez's work at the California Museum of Photography in Riverside
Learn more about Maria's Great Expedition
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ELSA FLORES
(Untitled) Kiss
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Elsa Flores is a Los Angeles-based Chicana painter, photographer, musician, and muralist. Perhaps her best known work is the 15' x 70' California Dreamscape mural which was commissioned by the California Arts Council and is exhibited at the Reagan State Building on 3rd and Spring in Downtown, Los Angeles. The work was a collaboration with her husband, Carlos Almaraz. She completed the mural in 1990 following Almarez's death from AIDS the previous year.
Elsa Flores artworks came to the museum through the generous donation of more than 700 pieces by Dr. Gene Rogolsky. Dr. Rogolsky collected works by Almaraz, Flores, and many of their contemporaries. Elsa's work is not as well know as her husband's, but is equally exciting in its use of color and its profound sense of place: Los Angeles.
Listen to excerpts from or read the full transcript of a 1997 interview with Elsa Flores for the Archives of American Art.
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Credits:
•Blacklist, 1999. A Public Work by Jenny Holzer. Collection of Fisher Museum of Art, University of Southern California. This work is a gift of The First Amendment/Blacklist Project Committee.
•Carla Jay Harris, (clockwise from top left) Snake Bearers I, III, IV & VI, 2018, Archival pigment print, Museum purchase, ©Carla Jay Harris.
•Selma Guisande, (L) Las Partes del Todo (R) Desmembramiento Suspendido, ceramic, Museum purchase, © Selma Guisande.
•Christina Fernandez, (L) 1927, Going Back to Morelia and (R) 1950, San Diego, CA, 1995/1996, C-print, 20 x 16 in., Purchase Fund, Museum Studies Program Class of 2004, © Christina Fernandez.
•Elsa Flores, Untitled (Kiss), 1996, Woodblock print, 10 x 8 in., Dr. Eugene Rogolsky Collection, © Elsa Flores.
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