Sep 13–Dec 22, 2019

arms ache avid aeon: Nancy Brooks Brody / Joy Episalla / Zoe Leonard / Carrie Yamaoka: fierce pussy amplified

Carrie Yamaoka, A is for Angel (detail), 1991, Letraset and rubber cement on vellum, 17 × 14 inches.
About

arms ache avid aeon: Nancy Brooks Brody / Joy Episalla / Zoe Leonard / Carrie Yamaoka: fierce pussy amplified draws upon the collective power and diversity of individual art practices by the original core members of the queer art collective fierce pussy. Their works challenge boundaries of photography, video, painting, and sculpture, and activate forms of resistance through abstraction and by investigating the limits of perception and materials. Selections of each artist’s work from the late 1980s to the present are being installed in chapters. Chapters one to four were shown at Beeler Gallery at Columbus College of Art & Design. Chapter five, at ICA, contains a new set of artworks, continuing to challenge protocols of the exhibition format as the artists attune to the transit of time and space as materiality.

— Jo-ey Tang, Director of Exhibitions, Beeler Gallery at Columbus College of Art & Design, and Anthony Elms, Daniel and Brett Sundheim Chief Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania.

fierce pussy formed in New York City in 1991 through its members’ shared immersion in AIDS activism during a decade of increasing political mobilization around gay rights, and brought lesbian identity and visibility directly into the streets. Low-tech and low-budget, the collective responded to the urgency of those years, using readily available resources: old typewriters, found photographs, their own baby pictures, and the printing supplies and equipment accessible in their day jobs. An archive of fierce pussy works contextualizes the resonance between their collective imaginings, individual affinities, and shared tactics.

Support

arms ache avid aeon: Nancy Brooks Brody / Joy Episalla / Zoe Leonard / Carrie Yamaoka: fierce pussy amplified is organized by Beeler Gallery at Columbus College of Art & Design’s Director of Exhibitions Jo-ey Tang, Associate Director of Exhibitions Ian Ruffino, and Registrar Marla Roddy.

arms ache avid aeon: fierce pussy amplified is additionally supported by Stonewall Columbus and Denison University.

Support for arms ache avid aeon: Nancy Brooks Brody / Joy Episalla / Zoe Leonard / Carrie Yamaoka: fierce pussy amplified programming has been provided by the Sachs Contemporary Art Fund and the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation. Additional support has been provided by Norma & Lawrence Reichlin, and by Susan J. Weiler.

Installation Views
Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 1PM–2PM
Pennsight Drop-In Tour led by Kyle Whiting
Sun, Oct 27, 2019, 2PM–4PM
Coffee and Conversation: aeons, and/of absence
Sat, Nov 16, 2019, 2PM–4PM
Panel: Thinking Out Loud in Public
Support for arms ache avid aeon: Nancy Brooks Brody / Joy Episalla / Zoe Leonard / Carrie Yamaoka: fierce pussy amplified programming has been provided by the Sachs Contemporary Art Fund and the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation. Programming at ICA has been made possible in part by the Emily and Jerry Spiegel Fund to Support Contemporary Culture and Visual Arts and the Lise Spiegel Wilks and Jeffrey Wilks Family Foundation, and by Hilarie L. & Mitchell Morgan.