Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Martha Wilson, 2017 May 17-18. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Arts administrators -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Performance artists -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
An interview with Martha Wilson conducted 2017 May 17-18, by Liza Zapol, for the Archives of American Art at Wilson's home, in Brooklyn, New York.
Wilson speaks of growing up in Philadelphia area on a houseboat; moving to Newtown, Pennsylvania to live with her grandparents; her Pennsylvania Quaker upbringing, philosophy and family lineage; her experiences rejecting Quakerism as a teenager; her school and camp experiences; her mother's background as an artist; the history of Native Americans in Newtown; her father's family, character, and sexual abuse; her studies in Nova Scotia and her transition from studying English Literature to her inclusion at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD); her early works, such as Breast Forms Permutated, and her drag pieces; the treatment of women at NSCAD and her identification as a feminist performance artist, inclusion in c. 7500 and relationship to Lucy Lippard; using her body in Conceptual Art; the influence of Erving Goffman in her understanding of performance; moving to New York; her interest and work in performance art and Artists' Books; decision to move to New York; working in publishing and learning organizational systems; the founding of Franklin Furnace; her home and real estate conflicts in Brooklyn and protesting the Atlantic Yards Barclay Center development in Brooklyn; the development of Tribeca in 1976 and collaboration with other art spaces. Spreading of the arts spaces to East Village and Chelsea in the early 1980s; the management of Franklin Furnace as an extension of her artistic career; the creation of Disband and their collaborative; the creation of her political characters: Alexander Plague, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Tipper Gore, Donald Trump; the way she approaches characters; audience reactions; the decision to go virtual with Franklin Furnace, and conflict with the board; being a member of the Guerrilla Girls; the use of humor; the process of working by concensus; the conflicts within the Guerrilla Girls about hierarchy, race, debates about mission of the Guerrilla Girls; her performance as Michelle Obama; institutional and NEA responses to Franklin Furnace in the 1970s and 1980s; the professionalization of the arts spaces; the "NEA Four" and fighting for freedom of expression; the lineage of Performance Art and the lineage of the avant-garde; her son's birth and meeting her partner; current work of Franklin Furnace at Pratt.Wilson also recalls: Simone Forti, David Askevold, Vito Acconci, Margaret Kaplan, Printed Matter, Exit Art, Diane Torr, Barbara Kruger, Jacki Apple, among others.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Martha Wilson (1947- ) is a performance artist and administrator of the Franklin Furnace archive based in Brooklyn, New York. Interviewer Liza Zapol (1978- ) is an oral historian at the Archives of American Art.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics, and administrators.
Topic:
Arts administrators -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Performance artists -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for this interview was provided by the Lichtenberg Family Foundation.
An interview of Regina Vater conducted 2004 February 23-25, by Cary Cordova, for the Archives of American Art, in her home in Austin, Texas.
Vater speaks of her childhood in Copacabana, Ipanema, south of Rio de Janeiro; her father's career as a physician; her Basque, Portuguese, and Jewish heritage; her early education including early experiences with Greek philosophy; her parents' reaction to her desire to be an artist; her great-grandfather's translation of Virgil and Homer into Portuguese; her study abroad in France in 1972; her move to New York in the mid-1970s; her motivations for various works of art, including the series Gentle Solitude, Three Chinese Monkeys, Luxo Lixo, Electronic Nature, The Knots, Tina America, and "O Que e Arte?"; her Guggenheim fellowship in 1981; the 1976 Whitney Biennial; her marriage to video installation artist Bill Lundberg; her move to Austin, Tex.; her work with the Franklin Furnace Gallery and Flue magazine; her involvement with "cinema verité"; making films with Ruth Escobar; her travels in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Lima, Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia; her perception of the emotional differences between Latinos and Americans; her love of Brazilian culture; her own classification of her work and potential reasons for the lack of scholarship on her work; her activities as a curator including the 1984 show "Latin American Visual Thinking," at the Art Awareness Gallery in New York, N.Y.; difficulties with the Brazilian government in attempting to bring her film Green into that country; her love of poetry, especially concrete poetry; and the spirituality of her work. Vater also recalls Helio Oiticica, Lygia Clark, Frank Schaeffer, Antonio Diaz, Carlos Vergara, Rubens Gerschman, Mario Schemberg, Lucy Lippard, Augustos de Campos, John Cage, Joseph Beuys, Quentin Fiore, Tomasso Trinino, Bill Lundberg [the artist's husband], Leo Castelli, Dore Ashton, Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, Sophie Calle, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Ruth Escobar, Antonio Pitanga, Bobby Wilson, Sylvia Orozco, Bill Viola, Ana Mendieta, Martha Wilson, Catalina Parra, Liliana Porter, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Regina Vater (1943-) is a Brazilian born multimedia artist from Austin, Texas. Cary Cordova (1970-) is an art historian from Austin, Texas.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound discs and 1 compact disc. Duration is 5 hr., 10 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
This interview is part of the series "Recuerdos Orales: Interviews of the Latino Art Community in Texas," supported by Federal funds for Latino programming, administered by the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives.
The digital preservation of this interview received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center.
Martha Wilson. Martha Wilson response to "What is Feminist Art?", 2019. What is Feminist Art? questionnaire responses, 2019. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The papers of painter and educator Robin Tewes measure 8.4 linear feet and date from 1950-2016. The collection documents the life of a veteran New York artist, active in artist run galleries, such as Fifth Street Gallery, and in artists' organizations. Among the papers are biographical material, correspondence, nine notebooks, project files, teaching files, personal business records, printed material, photographic material, artwork, nine sketchbooks, and a few artifacts.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter and educator Robin Tewes measure 8.4 linear feet and date from 1950-2016. The collection documents the life of a veteran New York artist, active in artist run galleries, such as Fifth Street Gallery, and in artists' organizations. Among the papers are biographical material, correspondence, nine notebooks, project files, teaching files, personal business records, printed material, photographic material, artwork, nine sketchbooks, and a few artifacts.
Notable correspondents include Tewes' longtime friend and writer Beverly Donofrio, as well as Andrea Belag, Vija Celmins, Petah Coyne, Ilona Granet, Mark Innerst, Joyce Kozloff, Ruth Marten, Mark Tansey, Marcia Tucker, Martha Wilson, and Nina Yankowitz.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1950-2012 (0.3 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1970-2016 (0.9 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 3: Notebooks, 2007-2015 (0.4 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 4: Project Files, circa 1975-2015 (1.6 linear feet; Box 2-3, OV 10-11)
Series 5: Teaching Files, 1997-2015 (0.4 linear feet; Box 3-4)
Series 6: Personal Business Records, circa 1975-2010 (0.2 linear feet; Box 4)
Series 7: Printed Material, circa 1970-2015 (2.5 linear feet; Box 4-6, OV 12)
Series 8: Photographic Material, circa 1958-2015 (0.6 linear feet; Box 7, OV 13; 332 Megabytes; ER01)
Series 9: Artwork, circa 1950-2015 (0.7 linear feet; Box 7, OV 14-15)
Series 10: Sketchbooks, circa 1984-2010 (0.6 linear feet; Box 8-9)
Series 11: Artifacts, circa 2000, circa 2009 (0.2 linear feet; Box 9)
Biographical / Historical:
Robin Tewes (1950- ) is a New York painter and educator. Born and raised in Queens, New York, Tewes graduated from the High School of Art and Design in 1968 and received her BFA from Hunter College in 1978. Tewes was an original member of P.S. 122 Painting Association and founded the Fifth Street Gallery which operated on the Lower East Side in the late 1970s. Tewes has taught at several colleges and universities around New York City including Bard College, Hunter College, Pace University, Parsons the New School for Design, and the School of Visual Arts. She has been included in numerous exhibitions, both domestically and internationally.
Provenance:
Donated to the Archives of American Art in 2016 by Robin Tewes.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
