"Herstory: The Battle Continues" is featured in Meer Magazine

 
 
 

D’Ann de Simone, Euthymia II. Courtesy of Viridian Artists

Viridian Artists is pleased to present Herstory, an exhibition of outstanding art by all genders, celebrating women. The show extends from February 25–March 22, 2025, with an Opening Reception on Thursday February 25, 6–8pm and a Closing Reception and poetry reading on Saturday March 22, 4–6pm.

Herstory: an exhibit dedicated to the experience, viewpoint, and history of women. The word Herstory was born in 1962, but not until feminism gained ground in the 1970s was the word elevated into common usage in Robin Morgan’s book, Sisterhood is powerful. In 1987, March was designated Women’s History Month, but gender continues to be a bone of contention, as we are constantly reminded of the contest of power between entitlement and equality.

Simone de Beauvoir wrote The second sex in 1949, a response to women being considered less than men and in the 70s and 80s, Gloria Steinem became the voice of the feminist revolution. Others, like Jane Fonda, risked their careers by speaking out against the Vietnam War, and fighting for women’s rights, Native American causes, and climate action. Aretha Franklin, of powerful vocals and fearless activism, turned Respect into an anthem for women and civil rights. Shirley Chisholm was the first Black woman elected to Congress. Billie Jean King launched the Women’s Tennis Association, fought for equal pay, and paved the way for female athletes. Coretta Scott King fought for civil rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and peace. Katherine Graham took over The Washington post after her husband’s suicide and led the charge on the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. Diana Ross, singer, was a trailblazer for Black women in entertainment. Betty Friedan wrote of The feminine mystique. Angela Davis, scholar, activist, and former Black Panther, fought against racial injustice, mass incarceration, and economic inequality. Nina Simone’s music tackled racism, injustice, and the struggles of Black Americans. Sally Ride was the first American woman in space. Dolores Huerta fought for farmworkers’ rights. More recently we have Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris who both ran for president and nearly won. Also, we must not forget Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Nancy Pelosi who was twice Speaker of the House of Representatives. There were so many other women too, whose names must not be forgotten.

And it was in 1848, at the Seneca Falls Convention led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, that the Suffrage movement began, demanding legal and social rights for women, including the right to vote. She and Susan B. Anthony formed the National Women’s Suffrage Association, but by the late 19th century, they were already being faced with the opposition of churches, males, and businesses. In 1920, the 19th amendment finally granted women the right to vote and just last year, President Biden gave women equal rights by making the ERA the 28th amendment to the Constitution. The US finally joined the 85% of countries that include women’s equality in their constitution. Sadly, it will undoubtably be lost again as President Trump seeks to overturn many women’s and citizen’s rights. Some have already been lost. It is hard to reconcile the fact that in the U.S., the country considered so powerful, so democratic and so correct, 300,000 minors are married, most of them young girls married to older men.

The art in this exhibit explores a wide variety of questions, doubts, remembrances, hopes, fears, and fury that women continue to have. In too many ways, women are still struggling to combat the gender gap. Feminism entered its fourth wave in 2012, epitomized by the MeToo Movement and similar developments focusing on the empowerment of women. Since then, the dilemma of gender has become much more complex, as gender fluidity and change are more commonly embraced, and with targeted discrimination occurring in these increasingly discussed avenues of identity.

The artists in this exhibit use a variety of media, themes, and representations. Victoria Antonopoulos, Steven Ferri, Marc Chicoine, Alla Podolsky and Denita Benyshek focus on the strength of females, some realistically, others more abstractly. Elizabeth Ginsberg, Rosemary Lyons, Annaliese Bischoff and Vernita Nemec use words and symbols in their images to accentuate women’s reality. Vassilina Dikidjieva and Ellen Burnett present and honor female dilemmas. Halona Hilbertz, Renee Borkow, Bernice Sokol Kramer, May DeViney and Meredeth Turshen offer other images of women. David Fitzgerald and Jenny Belin focus on appearance as a female concern. d’Ann de Simone, Gail Meyers, Zoe Brown Weissmann and Kathleen Shanahan present “women’s work” and Debra Friedkin, the reality of women’s lives. Rick Mullin, Alan Gaynor, Diane Churchill and Sabine Carlson offer remembrances of women of accomplishment, and so many other artists offer tributes to the female in us all.

In many ways we are still The second sex and battles remain to be fought: gender equality, pay equality, freedom of choice to name just a few. The equality of the sexes and the rights of women were being written about in the 18th century by men and women: Mary and John Adams, Mary Wollstonecraft, Judith Sargent Murray, and Daniel Defoe were just a few who wrote feminist literature, and in the 14th century Giovanni Boccaccio wrote De claris mulieribus (Latin for “Concerning Famous Women”) a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women.

In the art world too, female artists still struggle to gain recognition and value equal to that of male artists, as the Guerrilla Girls have so aptly demonstrated in their posters and actions, along with Barbara Kruger, Nancy Spero, Cindy Sherman, Frida Kahlo, Kara Walker, Faith Ringgold, and many others.

This year, in the 5th incarnation of this exhibit, we have invited artists of all genders to participate as allies demonstrating support through their art about gender inequity and the importance of parity in every way between the sexes.

We encourage everyone to recognize the importance of art and culture to reflect our memories of the past and our wishes for the future. Viridian invites you to view this exhibit of moving artwork, and to experience how artists view the experience and reality of women in the world today. Come see the art, and on the last day of the show, Saturday March 22nd, come hear some of the artists read their poetry addressing the issues of sexual equality and the freedom that women are still striving to express.

Women’s liberation is the liberation of the feminine in the man and the masculine in the woman.

Vernita Nemec, A reminder. Courtesy of Viridian Artists

Vassilina Dikidjieva, Silence. Courtesy of Viridian Artists

Debra Friedkin, The female lifecycle. Courtesy of Viridian Artists

Vassilina Dikidjieva, Silence. Courtesy of Viridian Artists

Anna Novakov's YUGOTOPIA is featured in Meer Magazin

 
 

YUGOTOPIA

·     29 Jan — 22 Feb 2025 at the Viridian Artists in New York, United States

Anna Novakov, Admiring glances (b.), 2023. Courtesy of Viridian Gallery

Yugotopia is an evolving series of multimedia projects by Anna Novakov (b. 1959, Belgrade, Serbia), who divides her time between New York, France, and Italy. Drawing from her childhood memories of life in Socialist Yugoslavia, Novakov uses this body of work to explore her complex identity as both Serbian and American. These dual identities, shaped by cultural and political upheaval, provide a rich terrain for her artistic investigations.

At the heart of Yugotopia is the concept of nostalgia, though Novakov's approach to it is neither sentimental nor straightforward. Rather, she critically engages with the layers of personal and collective memory tied to her Yugoslavian heritage. Her works often invite viewers to reflect on the ways in which memory and longing shape one's understanding of identity, especially in the context of displacement and migration.

The installations in Yugotopia are flexible and adaptable, capable of being re-imagined depending on the venue's physical or technical constraints. These site-specific interventions allow each iteration of Yugotopia to respond to its surroundings, creating immersive experiences that vary in scale and materiality.

The series has been exhibited in several prestigious venues, including ZK/U (Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik) in Berlin, the Museum of Contemporary Art Salon in Belgrade, the Biennial Scent Fair in Los Angeles, Pleiades Gallery, New York, Museum of Contemporary Art, Westport, Palazzo Albrizzi-Capella, Venice and Viridian Artists, New York. These diverse locations highlight the universality of the themes explored in Yugotopia, which resonates across different cultural contexts. Whether through scent, sound, or physical objects, Novakov's work bridges her personal history with a broader dialogue about identity, memory, and the fluid nature of belonging.

Anna Novakov is a multi-disciplinary artist, writer, designer, curator and educator. She was born in Belgrade (former Yugoslavia) in 1959 and was raised in Berkeley, California. Novakov is Professor of Art History, Theory and Practice (Emerita) at Saint Mary’s College of California as well as a former Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the San Francisco Art Institute. Since moving back to New York in 2020, she has continued her teaching at Hofstra University and focused on her studio practice which consists of olfactory installations, wall works and textiles.

The daughter of noted environmental physicist Tihomir Novakov, she was immersed in the Ecotopian dreams of air pollution control from an early age. She was raised in both the Socialist Utopia of post-war Yugoslavia and the free speech, counterculture movements of Berkeley, California. Both radical movements had profound influences on diaspora, migration and displacement – areas of study that would form the basis of Novakov’s creative practice. In 1992, after completing her doctorate at New York University, she came to prominence in Manhattan as one of the first art critics to write about the interrelationship between art, emerging technology and Utopian spaces.

A prolific writer, she has published numerous books, magazine articles and exhibition cataloguesincluding Veiled histories: the body, place and public art (1996) and Carnal pleasures: desire, contemporary art and public space (1998), The artistic legacy of Le Corbusier’s machine à habiter (2008), Essays on womens ’artistic and Cultural contributions 1919-1939: expanded social roles for the new woman following the First World War (2009), Phantom architecture: essays on interwar architecture in Belgrade (2011), Play of lines: Anton Azbe’s art academy and education of East European female painters (2011), Talking points: conversations about art, gender and public space (2012), Diplomatic ties: Pavle Beljanski, Patronage and Serbian women artists (2012), Flat horizon: the art and life of Milan Konjović (2014) and Imagined utopias in the built environment: from London’s Vauxhall Garden to the Black Rock Desert (2017).

Her creative practice focuses on the transitory modalities of the olfactory and textile arts. As an artist and certified perfumer, Novakov is able to unpack events through a multi-sensory artistic lens by examining seemingly inconsequential things. While her creative practice focuses on conceptual perfumery and textile design she is also invested in the role of scent in the construction of personal and collective memories, fragrance as an aspect of Utopian societies and diasporic cooking as a socio-political act.