February 18–April 20, 2014
Opening Events: Thursday, February 20
4pm: Artists’ Roundtable
Co-moderated by Kate Lehman, Associate Professor of Communications and Curator Erin Riley-Lopez, Klein Lecture Hall
5–7pm: Reception, Freedman Gallery
Freedman Gallery
Center for the Arts
Albright College
Reading, PA
T +1 610 921 7715
Albright College’s Freedman Gallery will present Becoming Male, curated by Erin Riley-Lopez, Curator of the Freedman Gallery, on view from February 18 through April 20. From the visual arts to popular culture—whether in commercials, television shows, movies, or through artwork—gender, and its various constructions, is at the forefront of thought and debate. Should we be pinned down, particularly to one idea or notion of gender—male vs. female? Or can we exist between both? Does a plurality of selves exist within us? Becoming Male examines the development in American contemporary art since the 1970s of women artists, working in performance, photography, and video, who transform themselves into a male persona, exploring the way gender is conceived of and constructed, concentrating on themes of identity, self-portraiture, passing, and archetypal figures. Artists in the exhibition include Danielle Abrams, Eleanor Antin, Ana Mendieta, Adrian Piper, Shannon Plumb, Karina Aguilera Skvirsky, and Martha Wilson. The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color, comprehensive catalogue.
On view in the Project Space, as a complement to Becoming Male, the Freedman Gallery is also pleased to present Like Other Girls Do, a film by Melissa Potter about the last surviving member of a Montenegrin tradition in which a girl is brought up as a boy in a household with no male heirs.
Exhibition events:
Monday, February 10, 4pm
Synthesize Me #3: Society’s Ideas of Gender and Identity
Klein Hall
Friday, February 28, noon–1pm, and Sunday, March 2, 3-4pm
Art Bites
A free, guided tour and hands-on activities
Tuesday, April 8, 6–8pm
Diversity Night Coffeehouse
An open mic poetry and acoustic music slam, co-sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Affairs.
Mary Miss Amphitheatre and Freedman Gallery
International Film Series (IFS)
Five of this semester’s IFS screenings provide further exploration for the themes explored in Becoming Male. All screenings occur on Tuesdays, 7:30pm, in Klein Lecture Hall.
– March 4, The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, 114 minutes) by Carl Dryer
– March 11, Boys Don’t Cry (1999, 118 minutes) by Kimberly Peirce
– March 25, Orlando (1992, 94 minutes) by Sally Potter
– April 1, Sylvia Scarlett (1935, 95 minutes) by George Cukor
– April 8, Magic Mirror (2013, 75 minutes) by Sarah Pucill
To learn more about the exhibition, please visit www.albright.edu/freedman.
Exhibitions and programs in the visual arts at Albright College and The Freedman Gallery are generously supported by The Silverweed Foundation in honor of Doris C. Freedman; the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts and its partner, the Berks Arts Council; and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.
Albright is a nationally ranked, private college with a rigorous liberal arts curriculum with an interdisciplinary focus. The College’s hallmarks are connecting fields of learning, collaborative teaching and learning, and a flexible curriculum that allows students to create an individualized education. Albright College enrolls more than 1,650 undergraduates in traditional programs, 800 adult students in accelerated degree programs and 100 students in the master’s program in education.
