Fresno Art Museum and Barrett Barrera Projects presented a multidimensional traveling fashion exhibition examining the seven archetypes of womanhood.
was an exhibition exploring new femininity and storytelling
in boundary-pushing fashion.
See KSEE24's Destination California: The Fresno Art Museum
Report recorded 8/22/22
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A Queen Within investigates symbols of womanhood and challenges conventional notions of beauty with experimental gowns, headpieces, and jewelry by boundary-pushing fashion designers and artists including Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Chromat, Studio Roosegaarde, Gypsy Sport, Maïmouna Guerresi, and Iris van Herpen. The exhibition features more than 100 articles of fashion, photography, and videos presented in a dramatic gallery design that explores seven archetypal personality types, including Mother Earth, Sage, Enchantress, Explorer, Heroine, Magician, and Thespian. Derived from recurring motifs in myths and fairy tales of world literature, these archetypes are used to help unpack our understanding of the visual symbolism of female identity. “Fashion is art in motion that speaks to all generations and cultures,” Fresno Art Museum Executive Director Michele Ellis Pracy says. “A Queen Within is the type of high impact, high-end exhibition that Fresno deserves.” In a moment of critical reevaluation of women’s roles in culture, business, and society at large, A Queen Within presents a progressive, global exploration of female archetypes as seen through the eyes of an international cast of influential fashion and visual arts practitioners including 69, Adidas, Anrealage, Ashish, Jordan Askill, AVAVAV, Sandra Backlund, Bourgeois Boheme, Arvida Byström and Maja Malou Lyse, June Canedo de Souza, Carcel, Chanel, Chromat, Commes des Garçons, Cooper & Gorfer, CuteCircuit, Omar Victor Diop, Michael Drummond, Jalila Essaïdi, Fantich & Young, Salvatore Ferragamo, Gianfranco Ferré, Selam Fessahaye, Serena Gili, Gloverall, Molly Goddard, Gucci, Maïmouna Guerresi, Maja Gunn, Keta Gutmane, Gypsy Sport, Hassan Hajjaj, Hanifa, Herdentier, Tommy Hilfiger, Pam Hogg, Kids of the Diaspora, David LaChapelle, Laurence & Chico, Charlie le Mindu, Shaun Leane, Geoffrey Lillemon, Louise Linderoth, Living Colour for PUMA, Chan Luu, Maison Margiela, Ryan McDaniels, Alexander McQueen, Neil Mendoza, Rich Mnisi, Pyer Moss, Muskin, Namilia, Orange Fiber, Tabitha Osler, Minna Palmqvist, Antoine Peters, Joanne Petit-Frère, Prada, Michele Pred, Random Studio, Reformation, Daan Roosegaarde, Diana Scherer, Hideki Seo, Slow Factory, Studio Swine, Bea Szenfeld, Maiko Takeda, this is Sweden, Tribute Brand, Iris van Herpen, Vaquera, Waste2Wear, Vivienne Westwood, Bernhard Willhelm, Bethany Williams, Aoi Yamada, Ryan Mario Yasin, and YVMIN. "We are thrilled to present A Queen Within at the Fresno Art Museum," says co-curator Sofia Hedman-Martynova of MUSEEA. "Living at the crossroads of several national parks, Fresnans are uniquely aware of the necessity of protecting our natural world. Many of the featured designers in A Queen Within regularly incorporate themes of nature and sustainability into their practice and designs to promote a healthier and more beautiful future for all." |
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ABOUT BARRETT BARRERA PROJECTS Barrett Barrera Projects is the originator of a new model, in which museum touring exhibitions, multiple gallery spaces, private client sales, art-centered event production, and consultancy services are offered from a single organization. The company manages the world’s largest private collection of Alexander McQueen’s work, a large portion of which is featured in the exhibition, alongside an equally expansive representation of significant contemporary designers and artists. Barrett Barrera Projects offers complex, multi-disciplinary exhibition experiences that challenge the traditional boundaries separating art, fashion, design, and performance. ABOUT MUSEEA MUSEEA is a multidisciplinary design and curatorial platform based in London/Stockholm/Barcelona. Integral to their work is creating thought-provoking immersive environments that intrigue, inspire and draw people together. MUSEEA’s projects are driven by a passion for stimulating collaborations, global inclusivity, and sustainable artistic practices. ABOUT McCLATCHY FRESNO ARTS ENDOWMENT The McClatchy Fresno Arts Endowment of The James B. McClatchy Foundation aspires to establish Fresno as a creative and cultural arts hub and elevate the region as an arts destination. Through the exhibition, the Foundation hopes that Central Valley women, especially women of color and from all walks of life, identify and see themselves reflected and embraced in the exhibit, and that the public who visits is enlightened, connected, and transformed by these powerful images of women from around the world. Press Contact: Liza Stoner
Olu & Company
(434) 996-3062
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Kim Abeles (b. 1952) is the 33rd woman artist to be honored by the Museum’s Council of 100. Abeles is an American interdisciplinary artist and professor emerita currently living in Los Angeles. She is known for the social and political nature of her artwork and especially for her feminist perspective. Abeles has exhibited her works in 22 countries and has received a number of significant awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship. Additionally, she was a professor in public art, sculpture, and drawing at California State University, Northridge from 1998 to 2009, becoming professor emerita in 2010.
Opening July 30, 2022, her solo exhibition at FAM is organized as a survey providing examples of her work in the area of social and political consciousness. Some pieces are very personal while others address homeless women or women prisoners who work as firefighters. Also in this exhibition, Abeles addresses climate change and its effect on trees, human beings, our atmosphere, and the ever-present global smog. These artworks here will raise viewers’ awareness of the many crises facing our planet and humankind today.
In 1987, her work Smog Collector caught national and international attention, featured in Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal and on National Public Radio and the CBS Evening News. Abeles created an innovative technique using stencils and adhesives to collect smog particulates to produce symbols and images. Abeles was motivated to create the project through her own curiosity and the effects of a year-long protest against a factory near her home that she said was "spewing formaldehyde." She considers the work an ongoing series. Several smog installations are included in the Fresno Art Museum exhibition.
"The Smog Collectors materialize the reality of the air we breathe. I place cut, stenciled images on transparent or opaque plates or fabric, then leave these on the roof of my studio and let the particulate matter in the heavy air fall upon them. After a period of time, from four days to a month, the stencil is removed and the image is revealed in smog."
Another major installation at FAM includes Pearls of Wisdom: End the Violence, created in 2011 for the nonprofit organization A Window Between Worlds. For this project, Abeles gathered 800 participants who were victims of domestic violence to share their stories and design a pearl. The pearl-making process required first an "irritant" (an object that each woman chose to symbolize or describe her abuser) which was then wrapped in mylar paper on which the women wrote or made drawings about their experiences. The women then bound these up with yarn and covered them in plaster bandages like those used to heal broken bones. After the plaster was painted, Abeles presented the beautiful pearls on individual velvet-covered shelves. Abeles shows us that "These women are not survivors, but rather, they are champions in the athletic and spiritual sense." Pearls of Wisdom emphasizes that beauty doesn't stem from bad experiences but instead from recovery.
Kim Abeles' artworks are held in these selected museum collections, among many others:
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio
Art, Design & Architecture Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity's Paul D. Fleck Library Collection, Banff, Alberta, Canada
University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York
California African American Museum, Los Angeles, California
Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach.
City of Santa Monica, Santa Monica, California
Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture
Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California
The Museum of Modern Art Archives, Library, and Research Collections, New York
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Springfield, Virginia
Natural History Museum, Los Angeles, California
Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California
Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles
Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska
Yucun Art Museum, Suzhou, China
Abeles is the recipient of a number of awards from the California Arts Council, the California Community Foundation, the Getty Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Exhibition Curator: Michele Ellis Pracy, FAM Executive Director & Chief Curator
Support for this exhibition and catalog from the Fresno Art Museum's Council of 100.
Additional support from Sidney Stern Memorial Trust
