Miriam Shapiro / The Twinning of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden / 1989 / 80″ x 116″, (triptych) / Acrylic on Canvas / Flomenhaft Gallery

I entered the Flomenhaft Gallery knowing Miriam Shapiro’s name but unable to recall any images of her work or even how I knew her name. I probably read about her in an art history book, as she is undoubtedly a pioneer and significant figure in the feminist art movement. Growing up in an upper-middle class university town, it could have easily been that I had seen her work, either originals or reproductions, or, if not her work, derivative pieces hanging on the walls in my friends houses. It may even have even been that I had an art teacher in elementary, middle-, or high school that assigned us a project based on her work, echoing and speaking to her influence and importance.

I mention this because the first association I had walking through the gallery was a strong feeling of American Jewish womanhood, coming of age in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and living in the present. It made me think of my friends’ mothers, or other women I know in this demographic. That is in no way meant to diminish the work, categorize it, and put it in a nice easy to handle historically and culturally situated box. It speaks to me of women, struggling to stitch together narratives of identity and self-hood, to redefine femininity and womanhood.

In her work, historical and cultural symbols and artifacts are patched together, personalized and given new meaning. Stories are reinterpreted and retold. Fabric, cloth, and thread are woven together with acrylic and a host of other materials to create rich and exciting surfaces. The colors are lush, saturated, and full of life. The overall effect is that her work can feel simultaneously challenging and comforting, familiar and unfamiliar, radical and ordinary. I would guess, an important piece of our response to Miriam’s work, is determined by our own history, our own identity – whether or not we can see parts of ourselves and our own stuggles with identity reflected in her work, and how we think and feel about what we she reveals to us.

Miriam Schapiro’s Mini-Retrospective, March 13 – April 26, 2008, Flomenhaft Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, Suite 308