Kicking off Fall Semester at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) is a contemporary and somewhat controversial exhibit featuring innovative feminist Martha Wilson. Set to open Friday, the exhibit “Staging the Self” exposes her ongoing career as an artist and encapsulates what it means to be a female in modern society.
Her work extends over 40 years of performances, photographs, text and audio from her career in New York City, where she lives. This unique exhibit is a traveling show, organized by Independent Curators International (ICI) and is tweaked for each venue that it visits.
“Each space is different,” said Whitney Tassie, curator of modern and contemporary art for the UMFA. “We’re the only venue with a permanent collection. We’ve asked Martha to have an intervention with our collection. Each space is different … It’s a really hands-on show with a lot of different components, so it’s been a challenge to install, but it’s been really fun to think about how to encourage viewers to interact.”
“Staging the Self” will be broken down into three sections. The first gallery will focus on her photographic and text-based works and will also contain footage of her performances, many of which originated in the 1970s during which time Wilson emerged as a groundbreaking feminist artist.
“To work with someone that pioneered the advent of feminist performance art is really cool,” Tassie said. “The front gallery has a lot to do with expression of ourselves.”
Next in the exhibition will be a projection of footage of Wilson’s collaborative performance group Disband, a feminist music group that began in 1978. Disband is focused on creating noise resembling the punk music genre, involving more chanting and performing than instrumental music.
The last portion of the show highlights Wilson’s work at Franklin Furnace, an exhibition space she organized to display avant-garde art. The exhibition space has featured artists and shows from all over the world. Wilson started Franklin Furnace as a safe haven and usable venue for performance art. She has now added a virtual realm to the space. Wilson picked 30 projects from the past 30 years of Franklin Furnace to represent its metamorphosis from the day of its inception to now.
“Our job is to change the world,” Wilson said. “These artists want to draw people’s attention to racism, to AIDS, to the degradation of women — all of the unpleasant subjects of life. The ways that they do it have been profound and have had an impact on our culture.”
Wilson hopes her exhibit will promote awareness of the gender stereotype challenges facing society today.
“There’s a tension about gender and sexuality throughout society because our nation was founded by the Puritans,” she said. “Europe is more relaxed about sexuality than we are. Two hundred years later, we’re still kind of uptight. I think of women’s sexuality as a foregrounding concept in my life.”
Regarding the overall controversial nature of Wilson’s exhibit — as it will contain nudity and asks viewers to question their beliefs on sexuality, racial stereotypes and more — the UMFA has stressed that it hopes to be an open and educationally stimulating environment for all patrons.
“We’re an open place, a safe place for difficult conversations,” Tassie said. “We are an academic institution, and we want to have these high level conversations on what some people would deem difficult to have.”
UMFA has scheduled a panel discussion on the exhibit for Sept. 18 with Wilson. Sydney Cheek-O’Donnell, head of theatre studies, Elizabeth Clement, a professor of history and Rachel Middleman, a professor of art history, will also participate in the panel. It will be held at the UMFA and is open to the public.
Coupling this event will be a sold-out show by the Guerilla Girls on Sept. 12 at the UMFA.
In addition to Wilson’s individual art, she put together a collection of photographs by Helen Levitt and Garry Winogrand, which can be found on the second floor of the UMFA. The photographs have accompanying text meant to challenge the viewer. She hopes museum guests will notice the difference between a man’s gaze and a woman’s gaze — glances highlighted through Wilson’s photographic pairings.
“Staging the Self” is scheduled to run through Nov. 10. Students receive free admission to the museum, located at 410 Campus Center Drive. General admission is $7 for adults and $5 for children and seniors. Admission is free for all visitors on the first Wednesday and third Saturday of each month.