Girls Night Out

Girls' Night Out brings together the work of an international and intergenerational group of women artists whose works in photography and video reflect a new approach to issues of femininity and identity. The artists in Girls' Night Out create works that possess a quasi- documentary feel and a directness of approach as they engage with such classical art genres as self-portraiture, portraiture (especially featuring young women in the passage from girlhood to adulthood), and landscape. Some of their shared themes include provocative inquiries into youth culture, new notions of beauty, ethnographic techniques mixed with fashion devices, and an interest in journalistic aspects of the media. Formally rigorous and aesthetically resolved, this seemingly traditional imagery is infused by lyricism and psychological complexity.

The historical context for Girls' Night Out is found in the photography, film, and performance art of the 1970s and 1980s, which addressed social and political themes, often through provocative satire or irony. The open, fluid approach to gender and sexuality evident in the works in Girls' Night Out is informed by the pioneering conceptual and aesthetic stance of earlier artists but also represents a significant rupture with it. This new work confidently explores female identity without the need to challenge or critique feminine archetypes. The resulting imagery is as uncertain, contradictory, and filled with possibility as the adolescents these artists often portray.

Girls' Night Out was organized by the Orange County Museum of Art and was curated by Deputy Director of Programs and Chief Curator Elizabeth Armstrong and Contemporary Museum Director, Irene Hofmann. Girls' Night Out ends its national tour in Baltimore after travelling to the Orange County Museum of Art, the Addison Art Gallery, Andover, Massachusetts; Aspen Art Museum, Colorado; Contemporary Art Museum, Saint Louis; and the Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston.

Girls' Night Out is accompanied by a 132-page catalogue published by the Orange County Museum of Art.

Pressetext

GIRLS' NIGHT OUT

mit Elina Brotherus, Dorit Cypis, Rineke Dijkstra, Katy Grannan, Sarah Jones, Kelly Nipper, Daniela Rossell, Shirana Shahbazi, Salla Tykkä