The Artists Brooklyn Studio 6.30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. “If I were to make a list of the half-dozen most important people for art in downtown Manhattan in the 1970s the real downtown, the then-sparsely settled west-side area between Canal Street and Battery Park the conceptual artist and performer Martha Wilson would be on it.” HOLLAND COTTER Photo/Text Works, 1971-74. New York Times, April 2008. On Wednesday, March 30th, ICI will join artist Martha Wilson in her Brooklyn studio for a look into her determined, multifaceted, forty-year career as both artist and founder of non-profit space, Franklin Furnace. This studio visit will provide insight into Marthas inherently feminist and socially engaged practices. With Wilson acting as our guide, we will learn about the complex nature of her work as it encompasses her activities as an artist, creating conceptually-based performances, videos, and photo-text compositions since the early 1970s; her position as the founder and director of the non-profit space Franklin Furnace; her collaboration with other women to form the group, DISBAND. Martha Wilson lives and works in New York. She received a BA from Wilmington College in 1969 and a MFA from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. In 2008 Martha Wilson had her first solo exhibition in New York, Photo/Text Works, 1971-1974 at the Mitchell Algus Gallery in Chelsea, New York City. In 2009,the Dalhousie Art Gallery presented Martha Wilson: Staging the Self, curated by Peter Dykhuis and co-organized with ICI (Independent Curators International), New York. Currently, this exhibition is on view at Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery in Montreal, Canada from January 6, 2011 – February 19, 2011. [Photo credit © Kathy Grove]
