Openings: A Memoir from the Women’s Art Movement, New York City 1970-1992, by Sabra Moore

“Navel-gazing is absent from this heartfelt memoir.”

Sabra Moore’s Openings: A Memoir from the Women’s Art Movement, New York City 1970-1992 (New Village Press, 2016) describes the Texas-born artist’s experiences in Manhattan and Brooklyn back when moving there didn’t break the bank—back when artists could rent a huge loft and make a living by cobbling together small contracts with plenty of time remaining for art-making and activism to boot.

Naysayers may doubt that activism was necessary beyond the surge of Second Wave feminism in the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on journals written since 1964, Moore provides ample evidence of lasting sexism. For example, in the 1980s, Moore visited Frida Kahlo’s house in Mexico City and noticed that the only postcards for sale featured the works of Kalho’s husband, Diego Rivera. That same decade—in the wake of Ana Mendieta’s suspicious death after falling from the 34th window of the apartment she shared with her partner, Carl Andre—a male architect “jokingly offered to push me [Moore] out of a window when we disagreed.” (1) And, in the 1990s, a friend of Moore’s, Ora Lerman, was on an art-related academic panel in which the male panelists were paid honoraria but the female panelists weren’t compensated.

Navel-gazing is absent from this heartfelt memoir. Moore, an accomplished artist, discusses her own mixed media work throughout, but with seeming sincerity, by showing how it dovetailed with her personal life, from travel to family relations. For example, in a fabric calendar, Moore recounts her abortion while volunteering for the Peace Corps, using materials and techniques familiar to her because both of her grandmothers had been quiltmakers. Impressively, Moore includes people’s reactions to her work—both compliments and criticisms—and she reveals rejections as well as acceptances for exhibition submissions and grant proposals. This dose of realism is important for art students and emerging artists because it underscores the need to be steadfast. Signs of her success are tempered; for example, in a single paragraph, Moore recalls the good news that a curator offers unlimited funds for one of her artist books, but also the less-than-good news that the Social Science Research Council wants a book from the same edition at no cost. As the late Carrie Fisher remarked, “There is no point at which you can say, ‘Well, I’m successful now. I might as well take a nap.’” (2)

Moore’s inclusiveness of other Second Wave feminist artists is exemplary. She aims to expand the canon beyond a smattering of well-known female artists like Judy Chicago. As early as the 1970s, Moore realized, “If you are not named, you do not exist” (3). She doesn’t just mention her myriad colleagues by name; she describes their work, at minimum with a single sentence, but often with more. For example, she writes poetically of Hannah Wilke’s Brushstrokes No. 6 that preceded her death from cancer: “Rows of her shorn lockets [of hair] were framed like calligraphy, creating a text we could not decipher except for its bravery.” (4) The reader need not visualize the majority of the works referenced: a colour banner of images spans the bottom quarter of the page for the entire book, except when full-page images are included.

One perspective in the contemporary art world is that it is questionable for a curator to organize an exhibition that includes his or her own work, but Moore offers a compelling argument for organizers to double as participants. Basically, joining forces was the best strategy for making headway. She identifies as an activist artist, as a practitioner “who felt a call to action for our beliefs.” (5) That call manifested in various ways for feminists: organizing shows around themes like peace, founding artist-run galleries like Atlantic Gallery, and establishing artist-run periodicals like Heresies. Moore’s work was featured in all of these initiatives.

Moore does not gloss over the trials and tribulations of collective organizing. She cites challenges such as the horizontal structure of grassroots organizing delaying decision making; a revolving door of members hindering the ability to move beyond surface level concerns; poor institutional memory; lack of credit for behind-the-scenes work; a heavy reliance on unpaid labour; in-fighting; and financial mismanagement that could cripple a fledgling organization. Yet, in the end, collective action seems to have been worthwhile. Moore portrays it as an almost transcendental experience that fostered her creative practice, broke down institutional barriers, and facilitated lasting friendships with the likes of art critic Lucy Lippard (who has written an introduction for Openings along with poet Margaret Randall).

There is a wealth of valuable information within for researchers. Unfortunately, the presentation of information demands deduction. Artists are often referred to by their first name only; for example, in the second paragraph of the preface, Moore introduces three artists by first name only and by the end of the preface, just one of those three has had their last name specified. Especially for readers who don’t read cover to cover, a subject index would clarify an individual’s last name, plus it would enhance access overall. Also, the content is presented somewhat chronologically, but the sequence of events is often jumbled. For example, the first chapter is called, “Where I/We Came In (Starting in 1970),” but she actually begins in the 1960s (in order, 1966, 1969, 1963, 1970, 1982, 1972, 1973, 1984, 1983, and 1965). Jumping around from year to year is preferable to not knowing what year Moore is referencing. For instance, early in the book, Moore says she was married in the late 1980s. Much later, she notes the month and day of her wedding but not the year, and on the next page, an approximate date of 1989 is indicated by her reproduction of an exhibition card. However, in a later chapter, she reveals her wedding was 32 years after her sister’s in 1958, which would be 1990 and not the late 1980s. Another way the reader gets lost is through the absence (or rather, delay) of segues; for example, she mentions that a colleague of hers, Linda Peer, got married while placing her and her husband-to-be‘s hands on a book about the artist Giotto. Then she describes how she met Peer and she describes her personality. The next paragraph is about Moore’s trip to Europe, but only in the final sentence does she mention Giotto as the link to the previous paragraph. Also disorienting is the inclusion of dialogue without the identification of all speakers. For instance, Moore recounts her introduction of the artist Vivian Browne to the anthropologist Jonetta Cole. The three stand looking at Browne’s work. She then writes, “‘Does it make a difference that it’s women? It makes a difference!’” (6) The first question is assumed to have been asked by Cole, but is the response from Browne or from Moore, or is Cole answering her own question? Lastly, as a Canadian I would like to see more specificity with her reference to Reconstruction Project, an exhibition that traveled from Powerhouse Gallery (now La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse) in Montreal to Eye Level Gallery in Halifax in 1987. The caption for an installation view says merely, “Canadian installations” (the clarification of the gallery is only to be found in the illustration notes in the back of the book), and one quotation about artist-run centres is attributed generically to “the Canadians.” (7) Incidentally, no, I don’t know Bob from Calgary. (8)

No editor is listed in the book’s bibliographic information. Surely enlisting the help of one would have addressed the above issues. Marilyn Lanfear’s comment is pertinent, even though it is about Moore’s text-based art and not her writing: “You don’t make it easy to read your stories.” Moore’s retort was, “People have to want to read them.” (9) Personally, I enjoyed the memoir most when I read it quickly instead of searching for connections or clarity.

Reading the epilogue was like pulling a thread even though it’s obviously intended to tie up loose ends. In Moore’s updates about her colleagues’ current activities, I was surprised to see that Howardena Pindell is teaching art at SUNY Purchase, whose faculty I follow closely because it’s my former workplace. I am quite certain that it’s the Stony Brook campus she works at instead. A factual error like this casts doubt on the accuracy of all preceding content, so I recommend that researchers who consult Openings as a primary source document corroborate details with an additional source.


(1) p. 168
(2) “15 of Carrie Fisher's Best, Most Honest Feminist Quotes.“ The Cut. Dec. 27, 2016. nymag.com/thecut/2016/12/15-of-carrie-fishers-best-most-honest-feminist-quotes.html
(3) p. 44
(4) p. 198
(5) p. 208
(6) p. 187
(7) p. 200
(8) “Bob from Calgary, We’d Like to Meet You.“ CBC News Calgary. Dec. 29, 2015.http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bob-from-calgary-new-york-times-1.3383896 (9) p. 246

Suzy Lake: Playing with Time at the Art Gallery of Ontario

“…a ‘history of feminism as seen through her [Lake’s] work.’”

On November 21, the Art Gallery of Ontario was the venue for the debut screening of Suzy Lake: Playing with Time by independent filmmaker, Annette Mangaard.

The feature-length documentary opens with Toronto-based artist, Suzy Lake, developing film. In this immediate reference to the theme of time, she shakes a developing tank back and forth, back and forth, highlighting the mundane nature of this particular part of her otherwise captivating practice. It counteracts any presumptions of glamour, as do later scenes like a pigeon crossing Lake’s path while she adjusts a tripod. The arguable irony, of course, is that the act of making such a film is glamorous. It’s been a while since I watched films about grande dames like Marina Abramović or Vanessa Beecroft, but it strikes me that they stand in contrast to Mangaard’s almost four years of coverage of Lake, who comes across as a grounded artist.

Mangaard purposefully avoided pandering to the feminist adage, ‘the personal is political.’ The audience does learn that Lake was born and raised in Detroit, where she began making art as a child, and that she relocated to Montreal in 1968 at age 21 with her husband, a draft dodger. She recounts him being asked at the border if he was bringing in a car, a wife, or cattle, which underscored the perspective that “a wife was property.” The focus, however, is on Lake the artist. She states that she is more interested in the audience knowing what she is than who she is.

As to what Lake is, gender invariably informs the answer. Her Choreographed Puppet Series, which she began in 1976, communicates the concept of women as property without relying on personal anecdotes: she created a harness with straps that allowed her to be moved like a marionette by friends stationed on the top of a box, resulting in photographs of the jarring movements. Through such performative photographic self-portraits, she subverts the male gaze. Like her contemporary, Mary Beth Edelson, she takes the approach of, “I’m not trying to flirt with you” (Edelson). Lucy Lippard, who defended Lake’s early work when it was seen as radical, observes that Lake made “people see that a body was just a body.” She has continued in this vein, making works like large (read: imposing) portraits showing off her post-menopausal chin hair. “Ageing is just a different beauty,” she says matter-of-factly of the series.

In terms of appreciating the performative nature of her work, it’s terrific to see footage of images unfold rather than just seeing the finished products of still photographs. Personally, I was able to see Extended Breathing in Public Places (2008-2014), in which the artist attempts to stand motionless in loaded settings like the Detroit Institute of Art and the World Trade Centre construction site for an hour-long exposure, as evocative of an early daguerreotype in which the sole human activity in focus is at a shoe-shining station, with the rush of modernity reduced to a blur.

Interview clips with Sarah Angelucci, Barbara Astman, Connie Butler, Mary Beth Edelson, Lucy Lippard, Lisa Steele, Françoise Sullivan, Dot Tuer and Martha Wilson are included. Only one man, gallerist Donald Browne, speaks about Lake in the film (and ever so briefly), which has the effect of both celebrating women as authority figures and reinforcing the prominence of female voices in feminist art history. The multiplicity of voices is a strong contribution, but the occasional soundtrack of a voice without confirmation of the speaker’s identity is disorienting; I found myself trying to anticipate who the initial narrator was and once the interviewees had been shown on screen, trying to recall whose voice sounded like a match.

Numerous connections could be drawn between Lake’s work and the works of other feminist artists. Her Transformation (click Next for Gary William Smith) series, begun in 1973, comes to mind for its coincidence with Ana Mendieta’s gender-bending bearded self-portraits. Mangaard considers the complementary practices of Lake and Wilson, adding to the Canadian flavor of the film, since Wilson worked at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design during the period where she and Lake discovered one another’s work through personal recommendations and snail mail. "We're the same person!" Wilson exclaimed in the Q&A that followed, noting that they were born in the same year and they address similar subject matter.

Following the screening, a discussion ensued stemming from Lisa Steele’s question in the film about how far society has come. Wilson commented that she wants to punch someone in the nose when they say we’re in a post-feminist era. Mangaard noted that the film was intended to be a “history of feminism as seen through her [Lake’s] work.” Its archival footage and stories like Jared Sable telling Barbara Astman, “I’m taking on a new gal,” referring to Lake, indicate that we are by no stretch of the imagination in a post-feminist era.

Suzy Lake: Playing with Time is also featured in the AGO retrospective exhibition, Introducing Suzy Lake (November 5, 2014 – March 22, 2015) co-curated by Georgiana Uhlyarik, associate curator of Canadian art and Sophie Hackett, associate curator of photography.

Image, l. to r.: Martha Wilson, Suzy Lake and Annette Mangaard.

Better living through chemistry? Lise Melhorn-Boe's artist's books make you think twice

“... there’s  a mindset of, 'I don’t want to know this.'”

 Now that her show, Endangered, is over in North Bay (where, incidentally, I’m moving next month), Kingston artist Lise Melhorn-Boe was free to chat about her work. 

HS-Your show at the W. K. P. Kennedy Gallery focuses on intense subject matter, like the recent increase in deformed penises in babies attributed to chemical exposure and the positive correlation between homelessness and multiple chemical sensitivities. I swear my eyes started stinging right after reading your Toxic Face Book, which describes the toxins found in common cosmetics. What kinds of reactions have you received in relation to this body of work?

LMB- I have had a lot of positive feedback. Even people who thought they knew a great deal about our environment told me they had learned something. However, many people do think it’s depressing. I thought I was presenting the material in a lighthearted enough way that it would take the edge off the negativity. People are very interested but they’re not gaga over it like they have been for some of my other work, especially my work about women’s lives where they could really relate and wanted to share their own stories with me. With this body of work, there’s  a mindset of, “I don’t want to know this.” Some of the information is very scary. It’s maybe easier just not to know, so you don’t have to worry about it and you don’t have to make choices, but art (or some art) is about making people think and that’s what I’ve always tried to do.

HS- In your artist books, it often feels like you could keep turning the pages forever to read more and more dire statistics about the environment. Gypsy Moth was such a lovely read because the woman who almost died after being dosed with pesticide designed to kill gypsy moth caterpillars gets better at the end. How do you strike a balance between presenting dark subject matter and giving people hope that they can change their ways and make a difference?

LMB- As I said, I was coming at it [the subject matter] from a lighthearted angle. (Laughs). It’s an interesting question and hope is important. Because I was so overwhelmed by negative information, I wasn’t feeling hopeful myself so it was hard to put that in the work. To be honest, sometimes I am glad I am getting old. I’d be really depressed and angry if I were in my twenties, knowing what is ahead of us. At this point in my life, I’m more resigned and cynical.

HS-In terms of making a difference, you don’t just walk the walk. Not only do you make art about garbage, but you refuse to use plastic bags to line your own garbage can, you pick up litter if it can be recycled, and I remember at White Water Gallery, you would save up styrofoam that couldn’t be recycled locally so you could recycle it when you went “down south” as the people of North Bay say. Have you always been so environmentally conscious?

LMB- I made my first environmental project for a Man and Society class in high school when I was seventeen, I think. (What a sexist name! They later changed it to Society, Challenge and Change). It was a collaged book on pollution. So yes, I’ve always been concerned about the environment and involved in environmental groups. This is a timely question because it struck me today that I’ve been riding a bicycle for 50 years.

HS- Today’s protests in Ottawa by scientists angry about the federal government’s cuts to funding for environmental protection underscore the precarious state of the environment. If you could have the attention of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, what would you say to him?

LMB- There’s a term, “precautionary principle,” which posits that it’s better to be safe than sorry. At the moment, anyone can come up with a product and market it and later say, “Oops, that was dangerous.” As a nation, we should think strongly about what materials we’re introducing into our lives rather than trying to mop up disasters in retrospect... and I’d tell him to forget about the tar sands and to come up with a different plan.

HS- Text is very prominent in your work. Which tends to come first: text or image?

LMB- In the past I would have said the text, definitely. When I was working with women’s stories, the story birthed the form of the piece. I interviewed women and used questionnaires, but for this body of work, the responses I got from people were very negative and they weren’t good stories. People were overwhelmed by their health issues and I was not inspired visually by their stories. A story has to have a visual component to transform it into a visual piece. I ended up doing more research in the library than usual, so a lot of the text is factual as opposed to narrative. Maybe that’s why Gypsy Moth stands out. It has a beginning, middle and end, and she [the subject] told it well. Pain started with the text, and in Happy Memories, those are all stories from actual people.

Garbage [in which she collected garbage for seven weeks—save for organic waste—and displayed one week’s worth in each of the seven copies in the edition, each stored in a tiny, adorable garbage can] started with the heavy duty plastic mesh bags which came from the only organic produce that was available to me in North Bay. I thought it was so incongruous. Since the store refused to take them back, I decided I had to do something with them. 

With this whole body of work, I was thinking of the environment as a topic, so I was more aware than usual about my materials. I recycled materials and I recycled ideas. Toxic Face Book uses a leftover cast of a face from a feminist piece called Colour Me Dutiful that was too thin to use at the time. What's For Dinner? uses a similar format to two earlier books—I have often made work about food. And I've used clothing a lot too, in the past, so the baby clothes in Endangered Species and the paper doll clothes in Toxic Kids fit right into my oeuvre. Endangered Species uses PVC connectors I found while trying to find a sturdy way to construct a large tunnel book in the shape of an ice hut for Ice Follies, an art installation festival in North Bay where artists use ice huts on the lake for installations. I was initially planning a piece about the projection that Lake Nipissing [in North Bay] wouldn’t have ice in twenty years, which would be about sixteen years from now. Then the idea morphed because PVC is a really toxic material to create and it seemed perfect to talk about the effect of toxins on babies.

HS-You have an inventive approach to materials, like using a transparent overlay of fabric to represent cheese on a pizza in the book, What’s for Dinner? Do you have fun coming up with these visuals?

LMB- Oh, I have a lot of fun! For me, because it was so much fun making this work that it overshadowed the negative content, I was taken aback when people focused on the negative content over the visual presentation.

HS- You’ve made pop-up books for a long time before your work took an environmental turn. Do you find this format has a different resonance with this subject matter?

LMB- I’ve always used it for its playful character so it was deliberate to pair some of these painful topics with this format to affect the tone. Pop-ups are fun; I teach them to kids in classrooms. I was trying to add an element of playfulness [with pop-ups in this body of work].

HS- What’s it like to make explicitly personal work like Body Map, where you show the interplay between health problems and the environment, with text overlaying  a fairly sizeable photograph of your naked body?

LMB- Just recently, a woman I know who has had breast cancer told me I was very brave and I was surprised because I’d never really thought of it that way. I came up with the idea for Body Map when I did a residency at Queen’s University. I thought about approaching a student photographer but I chose to ask my husband to take the photos even though he’s not a photographer. I’ve been to nudist colonies but I wasn’t comfortable stripping in front of just anyone. Maybe there’s something different about being photographed than walking on the beach. I think I might have been hesitant to do something like that before I had cancer but having had a mastectomy, I don’t feel quite as sexual as I once did, so it’s less revealing personally. Besides, once the image is out there, I’m separated from it.

No Safe Levels also shows my naked body but I took artistic license with it. It’s a pop-up and technically, I needed the right breast to pop up because it was on the fold. That’s actually the one that was cut off, but I just switched them. It’s much more abstract [than Body Map] and not everyone realizes it’s my body.

HS- Can you comment on one of the final images in Breast Cancer Journal  in which a figure floats through the sky, separated from but seemingly drawn to, the earth?

LMB- It was the result of a meditation, something that came to me in a vision. I think it’s me but why I’m floating out there I can’t remember. (Turns the page). This one I had a vision of in a winter solstice ceremony. I saw my breasts on fire. (Turns the page). And this is me holding up my child self and coming back up to the light. (Turns the page). I’m holding myself and mothering myself. It [making this journal] was all very positive. I debated about using text in this piece but I decided I liked the mystery. It wasn’t actually intended to be an art piece. A few people I showed the images to found them powerful, so I thought, “Why not?” In a way, this is more revealing [than works like Body Map]: this is my naked psyche or naked soul rather than my naked body. 

HS- Your earlier work was very feminist. Is the relationship between our health and the environment a feminist issue in your opinion?

LMB- It pertains to everyone but because women have more body fat than men and toxins reside in body fat, in that sense, these toxins affect women more, so that makes it a feminist issue. Also, women carry the next generation and they say the best way to detox is to breastfeed, but that means passing the toxins on to your baby. It was something I worried about when I breastfed. (Looks at her son who coincidentally appeared in the stairwell at this moment). For those reasons, it’s a really important issue for women.

HS- Lastly, are there other environmental artists you admire?

LMB- This is going back a long time, but I was always very moved by Ana Mendieta’s work. The way she put her body in the environment—there was such a strong connection between her and the earth. I suppose that’s essentialist, stressing the connection between women and the earth, and it annoys some people, but if I had to choose a camp, that’s the one I’d fall into.

For images, see Transformer Press

This interview took place on July 11, 2012 at Lise’s home.