NEW PORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA.- The Orange County Museum of Art presents “Girls’ Night Out,” on view through January 25, 2004. The exhibition includes artists: Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Elina Brotherus, Dorit Cypis, Rineke Dijkstra, Katy Grannan, Sarah Jones, Kelly Nipper, Daniela Rossell, Shirana Shahbazi and Salla Tykkä.
Girls’ Night Out presents photography and video made over the last decade by two generations of female artists who embrace an evocative and poetic approach to female identity. The work of this international group of artists shares themes such as youth culture, new notions of beauty, and a lyrical _expression of the subjects’ inner desires, dreams, and aspirations.
The historical context for Girls’ Night Out is found in the photography, film, and performance art of women artists of the 1970s and 1980s. While these earlier artists dealt with social and political themes in their work through provocative satire or didacticism, the artists in Girls’ Night Out employ very different approaches, creating work that is characterized by its subjectivity and directness of _expression. They also share an interest in revitalizing such classical genres as portraiture (especially of young women in the passage from girlhood to adulthood), architectural spaces, and landscape. Formally rigorous and aesthetically resolved, this seemingly traditional imagery is imbued with mystery, complexity, and sometimes even a romantic quality.
As OCMA deputy director for programs and chief curator Elizabeth Armstrong writes in the introduction to the exhibition catalogue: "The artists in Girls’ Night Out offer a multiplicity of glimpses into the personal and social spaces that we inhabit today. . . . Their work confidently explores female identity without the need to challenge or critique feminine archetypes. Here the ‘girl’ does not represent the feminine per se but instead embodies a vulnerability and at the same time a sense of unbounded potentiality that are essentially human.”
Central to Girls’ Night Out is the idea of “the girl," which reflects another generational shift. In a culture in which significant gains in gender equity have been achieved, strict adherence to the feminist ideology of the past has given way to new portrayals of women. The artists in the exhibition, eschewing “political correctness,” focus on girls and women in self-conscious and transcendent moments. The ongoing metamorphosis from girlhood to adulthood is at the core of the show. Writing about the image of "the girl" in contemporary visual culture, Girls’ Night Out author Taru Elfving portrays her as a figure in a constant state of negotiation and fascination, veiling and unveiling. "This is the carefully guarded blind spot that the artists in Girls’ Night Out also mobilize," she writes, "albeit through very distinct viewpoints, strategies, and spins.”
Girls’ Night Out is organized by Elizabeth Armstrong and OCMA Curator of Contemporary Art Irene Hofmann. A 136-page, full-color catalogue accompanying the exhibition includes essays by the exhibition curators as well as by art historian Taru Elfving and video and film scholar Bill Horrigan, curator of media arts at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio. The catalogue will be available in mid-September for $29.95 from the OCMA Store and on the Web at ocma.net. To order by phone, call (714) 662-3366.
After its debut at OCMA, the exhibition will embark on a nationwide tour that will include the Contemporary Art Museum, Saint Louis (September 16–December 31, 2005), and the Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston (January 21–April 2, 2006).
Neutrogena is the national sponsor for Girls’ Night Out. Additional support for Girls’ Night Out has been provided by James B. Pick and Rosalyn M. Laudati, Joan and Don Beall, Visionaries, LEF Foundation, Women’s Consortium of the Orange County Museum of Art, Christine and Jeff Masonek, FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange, Patricia and Max Ellis, Anita Kunin Fund of The Minneapolis Foundation, and an anonymous donor.
