Bonnie Lucas

evergreen_web_banner.png

KBOO is open to the public! To visit the station, contact your staff person or call 503-231-8032.


Hosted by: 
Produced by: 
KBOO
Program:: 
Air date: 
Tue, 04/11/2023 - 11:30am to 12:00pm
bonnie_lucas_booty_1985_smaller.jpg
Jeanine Jablonski on the show “Bonnie Lucas 1978-2023”

On Tuesday, April 11, 2023, at 11.30am Joseph Gallivan interviews curator Jeanine Jablonski about the show “Bonnie Lucas 1978-2023” which is at the ILY2 Gallery through May 29. Jablonski talks about how Lucas’s assemblages have changed over the decades, how the founding Guerilla Girl still likes pink and girlie things which she can mutate for deeper meaning, and how the gallery went the extra mile for Lucas to put on a retrospective 3,000 miles away.

 

This interview was recorded on April 5, 2023, on an iPhone 14 pro and engineered by KBOO volunteer Ray Bodwell. https://kboo.fm/blog/55224

 

More me in the Portland Tribune:

https://www.portlandtribune.com/lifestyle/features/bonnie-lucas-is-in-th...

 

FROM THE PRESS RELEASE:


Bonnie Lucas 1978-2023

ILY2 is honored to present Bonnie Lucas 1978-2023, the first solo exhibition on the West Coast for this New York-based artist. This survey exhibition features several bodies of work developed over the last four decades. Together, they offer a comprehensive view into Lucas’ complicated exploration of the aesthetics and ideologies of traditional femininity in allegorical works that are at once celebration and critique as filtered through the most accessible strata of commodity culture.

The majority of the works on view are meticulously hand-sewn low-relief assemblages on fabric of a cornucopia of inexpensive, feminine-coded 99-cent store commodities—pastel ribbons, beads, buttons—all of which she reveres as “precious objects.” In more recent assemblages Lucas introduces parts of dismembered dolls and plush toys as well as costume jewelry. Complicating the read of the assemblages are her oil paintings—surrealist scenes of flower-headed dolls and headless women in mid-century dress—and a set of diptychs that juxtapose what could pass for nostalgic illustrations for children’s books with noisy abstractions.

The earliest works on view are delicate abstract reliefs featuring items of clothing, ribbons, sewing findings stitched to a ground and meticulously traced in undulating lines of yarn that ripple outward and fill the voids between forms. In one, an infant’s white smocked dress spills forth from its hem a cascade of a string of mauve seed beads, braided cord, pink ribbon, mint embroidery floss, pearls, and a white scallop shell. In another, a white zipper is unzipped to reveal a composition of tiny pink and white beads, petals, pearls, sequins, buttons, the whole of it outlined in row upon tightly packed row of satin cord and ivory yarn.

One pole of the dialectic of Lucas’ aesthetic and method is her commitment to traditional femininity, resolutely riding out various waves of its unpopularity since the 70s. This is reflected in her embrace of a feminine-coded palette and iconography, the traditionally feminine handcraft of sewing, and her unapologetic celebration of dimestore consumer culture that targets and indoctrinates the young girl, seducing her with shiny pastel vacuum formed and molded plastics. “Shopping is a big part of my practice,” Lucas says. “I honor and love the supercharged feminine objects I use; I want to make them potent and powerful.” This potency is achieved at the other pole of the dialectic where Lucas intuitively follows her compulsion to deconstruct these objects, snipping them carefully apart with scissors or pliers and reconstructing them in compositions that are at once sweet and nostalgic, disturbing and visceral. Objects are cut and splayed open, penetrated, stuffed, threaded through and around one another in precisely arranged tangles. It is in these physical deconstructions that Lucas deconstructs the minor violences of relations among women and their things under patriarchal capitalism.

Lucas’ titles such as “Sweetness” or “Happy Together” reflect her ambivalence, an ironic sincerity or sincere irony. They make it impossible to ignore a darker read of even her most benign compositions. In the press release  for her first solo show in New York’s East Village in 1984, Lucas was quoted as saying, “I create feminine monsters.” She stands by this assessment to this day.

Bonnie Lucas 1978-2023 is the inaugural exhibition in ILY2’s new home at 925 NW Flanders in Portland’s Pearl District. The 1660 square foot gallery, formerly housing the venerable PDX Contemporary, has been redesigned as a multi-use space by Andee Hess and Makrai Crecelius of Osmose alongside Allie Furlotti. Maintaining the unique flexibility produced by the existing rotating walls, the redesign reflects ILY2’s refusal of business-as-usual with distinctive wall-to-wall mirrored ceilings reflecting warm wood floors and more importantly, custom state-of-the-art lighting that is tunable for exhibition and performance. The office has been transformed into a welcoming, cocoon-like cove with a resource library for the community. The gallery is dedicated to the memory of Hilary Tisch.

Bonnie Lucas was born in 1950 in Syracuse, New York. She completed a B.A. in Art History from Wellesley College and an MFA from Rutgers University. In the decades that have followed, her work has been exhibited throughout the United States (New York, Cambridge, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Oakland) and abroad (Netherlands, Finland, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia). In the 1980s, she presented a series of solo exhibitions with the Avenue B Gallery in New York. Her work has been included in projects at the Drawing Center, the International Studio Curatorial Program, Sideshow Gallery, the Painting Center, Art in General, the DeCordova Museum, the Dutch Textile Museum, and Bellevue Art Museum among other institutions. In 2011 Lucas was interviewed by MSNBC.com, and her work has been written about in Artforum, ARTnews, The New York Times, The Village Voice, The New Yorker, and USA Today. In 2014 her work was the subject of a survey exhibition at Sylvia Wald and Po Kim Gallery, an artist-run space in New York. Following on this extensive survey, Lucas presented solo exhibitions at JTT in 2017 and 17ESSEX in 2018. Lucas lives and works in New York City.

https://ily2online.com/

More http://bonnielucasartist.com/index.html

 

 

 

THE BIG WINTER ASK

Did you notice KBOO was off the air for a power outage during the storms just before Christmas? Since then, we are playing recorded shows only. A new UPS (uninterrupted power supply) will help us stay live on the air, but it adds to our bills. Can you help us pay for it to keep live programming on the air?

KBOO Radio is a volunteer-run nonprofit, and it needs your money if you are listening.

Donate to KBOO right now during our Membership Drive here   https://secure.givelively.org/donate/the-kboo-foundation .

Show your support for KBOO programs like Art Focus by becoming a member of KBOO today.

Go to kboo.fm/give, or you can donate by texting K-B-O-O to 4-4-3-2-1. It’s our members who make KBOO possible so donate today. Thanks for tuning in and thanks for listening to volunteer powered, community supported K-B-O-O Portland.

To hear previous episodes of Art Focus or any of our KBOO public affairs programming, just go to KBOO dot F-M or listen on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Joseph Gallivan has been a reporter since 1990. He has covered music for the London Independent, Technology for the New York Post, and arts and culture for the Portland Tribune, where he is currently a Feature Writer. He is the author of two novels, "Oi, Ref!" and "England All Over" which are available on Amazon.com

josephgallivan@gmail.com 

 

 

Download audio file
Topic tags: 
Genre(s): 

Episode Playlist

  • Time
    11:00
    Artist
    Miles Davis
    Song
    Miles Ahead - master
    Album
    The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings
    Label
    Columbia
  • Time
    11:28
    Artist
    David Bowie
    Song
    Andy Warhol - 1999 Remastered Version
    Album
    Hunky Dory
    Label
    WMG - Jones/Tintoretto Entertainment Company LLC
  • Time
    11:29
    Artist
    Junior Wells' Chicago Blues Band
    Song
    Chitlins Con carne
    Album
    Hoodoo Man Blues
    Label
    Delmark
  • Time
    11:56
    Artist
    Ramiro Ramírez
    Song
    La Casa de las Almas
    Album
    Azteca
    Label
    México Sonoro / Producciones Orco
  • Time
    11:59
    Artist
    Little Walter
    Song
    Juke
    Album
    Summertime Blues
    Label
    BELIEVE - Underground Inside Records

Audio by Topic: