Faith Wilding (born 1943) is a Paraguayan American multidisciplinary artist - which includes but is not limited to: watercolor, performance art, writing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, and

digital art Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960s, various name ...

. She is also an author, educator, and activist widely known for her contribution to the progressive development of feminist art. She also fights for ecofeminism, genetics, cyberfeminism, and reproductive rights. Wilding is

Professor Emerita ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

of performance art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Personal life and education

Faith Wilding was born in 1943 in

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to t ...

and emigrated to the

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in 1961. She holds a degree in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

from the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 co ...

. In 1969 she began her graduate studies and then received her Master of Fine Arts degree from California Institute of the Arts.Jane F. Gerhard.
The Dinner Party: Judy Chicago and the Power of Popular Feminism, 1970-2007
'. University of Georgia Press; 1 June 2013. . p. 27. She was married to Everett Frost, an English professor. Wilding and her husband were anti-war activists and members of the Students for a Democratic Society. While in Fresno, Wilding and her friend

Suzanne Lacy Suzanne Lacy (born 1945) is an American artist, educator, writer, and professor at the USC Roski School of Art and Design. She has worked in a variety of media, including installation, video, performance, public art, photography, and art books, ...

became activists for the feminist movement.

Career

Wilding became a teaching assistant in the Feminist Art Program Judy Chicago founded at California State University, Fresno, in 1970.Jane F. Gerhard.
The Dinner Party: Judy Chicago and the Power of Popular Feminism, 1970-2007
'. University of Georgia Press; 1 June 2013. . p. 27–28. While there, she participated in the month-long, ground-breaking feminist exhibition Womanhouse, held in an empty house in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

in 1972. For ''Womanhouse'' she made ''Crocheted Environment'' which she originally called ''Womb Room'' (1972) as well as the performance work ''Waiting''. Wilding wrote about the Feminist art movement in her book ''By Our Own Hands'' (Los Angeles, 1976). She has worked in various media including art, video, installations, and performances. Her work has been exhibited in North America, Europe and Asia, including at the

Bronx Museum of the Arts The Bronx Museum of the Arts (BxMA), also called the Bronx Museum of Art or simply the Bronx Museum, is an American cultural institution located in Concourse, Bronx, New York. The museum focuses on contemporary and 20th-century works created by ...

, the

Whitney Museum of Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942 ...

, and the Drawing Center, all in New York City; in Los Angeles at the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Hammer Museum; the Riverside Art Museum; documenta X, Kassel;

Ars Electronica Center Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in the ...

, Linz; The Next Five Minutes Festival, Amsterdam; and Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid. Her audio work has been commissioned and broadcast by RIAS Berlin; WDR Cologne; and

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

. Wilding taught at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has worked as a Research Fellow at the Studio for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University, and a faculty member of the Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art Program at Vermont College, Norwich University. She has received several grants and awards in art, including a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship. She was interviewed for the 2010 film ''

!Women Art Revolution ''!Women Art Revolution'' is a 2010 documentary film directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson and distributed by Zeitgeist Films. It tracks the feminist art movement over 40 years through interviews with artists, curators, critics, and historians. Synop ...

''.

subRosa

In 1998, Wilding co-founded with artist Hyla Willis, subRosa, a cyberfeminist organization. The manifesto for subRosa states: “subRosa is a reproducible cyberfeminist cell of cultural researchers committed to combining art, activism, and politics to explore and critique the effects of the intersections of the new information and biotechnologies on women’s bodies, lives, and work… Let a million subRosas bloom!” subRosa has performed, exhibited, lectured and published in the US, Spain, Britain, Holland, Germany, Croatia, Macedonia, Mexico, Canada, Slovenia, and Singapore. Recent Wilding/subRosa performances/exhibitions include: “The Interventionists”, MASSMoCA; “BioDifference” Biennial of Electronic Arts, Perth, Australia; Performance International, Mexico City, and Mérida, Yucatán; “Cloning Cultures,” National University, Singapore; Welcome to the Revolution, Zurich; Art of Maintenance, Kunstakademie, Vienna. Their works include "Feminist Matter(s): Propositions and Undoing", staged for the Pittsburgh Biennial 2011, that invited visitors to discuss the representation of women in the history of science and technology at tea tables. In 2013, the Women's Caucus for Art announced that Wilding will be a 2014 recipient of the organization's Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, threewalls, a non-profit art gallery in Chicago, held the first retrospective of Wilding's work titled "Fearful Symmetries" that featured artwork spanning 40 years.

Publications

;Author * ''By Our Own Hands: The Woman Artist's Movement, Southern California, 1970-1976.'' Santa Monica: Double X, 1977. * "The Feminist Art Programs at Fresno and CalArts, 1970-75" in ''The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s''. Eds. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard. New York: Abrams,1996, 32–47.
"Knowing Bodies - Feminist issues in health care, medicine, and biotechnology
" ''Neme.''

''M/E/A/N/I/N/G,'' #18 November 1995.
"Stolen Rhetoric: The Appropriation of Choice by ART Industries
" ''Neme.''
"Where is Feminism in Cyberfeminism?"
''Neme.'' 28 March 2006. ;Coauthor or editor * ''Domain Errors! Cyberfeminist Practices''. Eds. Maria Fernanadez, Faith Wilding, and Michelle M. Wright. Autonomedia, 2003. * Laura Meyer with Faith Wilding, "Collaboration and Conflict in the Fresno Feminist Art Program: An Experiment in Feminist Pedagogy". ''n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal'' vol. 26, July 2010 pp. 40–51. * subRosa, Faith Wilding. "Bodies Unlimited A decade of subRosa's art practice." ''n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal.'' July 2012. 28. pp. 16–25. * Faith Wilding, Critical Art Ensemble
"Notes on the Political Condition of Cyberfeminism."
''Art Journal.'' Summer 1998. 58: 4. pp. 46–59. * Faith Wilding, Mira Schor, Emma Amos, Susan Bee, Johanna Drucker, María Fernández, Amelia Jones, Shirley Kaneda, Helen Molesworth, Howardena Pindell, Collier Schor
"Contemporary Feminism: Art Practice, Theory, and Activism--An Intergenerational Perspective"
''Art Journal.'' Winter, 1999. 58: 4. pp. 8–29.

Visual work

Crocheted Environment

Nicknamed "Womb Room", this piece is a sculptural installation of a large crocheted, weblike structure. Faith Wilding contributed this one room, crocheted environment within the collaborative 1972 Womanhouse installation put together by the Feminist Art Program at the California Institute for the Arts. The piece was also displayed in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, as well as the Bronx Museum, New York, under “Division of Labor: Women’s Work in Contemporary Art.”

Wall of Wounds

Wall of Wounds is an installation of 100

Rorschach Rorschach may refer to: * Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist ** Rorschach test, his psychological evaluation method involving inkblots * Rorschach (character), a character from the comics ''Watchmen'' * Rorschach (comic book), a 2020 comic * R ...

prints. Each 6” by 6” print is intended to comment on the social culture by proclaiming one's pre-categorized “wound.” Each print is signed and titled based on the nature of the wound: for example, “political wound,” “sexual wound,” or “phallic wound.”

Battle Dresses

Battle Dresses are a series of paintings entitled “Raped Dress,” “Suppurating Dress,” and “Pregnant Dress.” The series is dedicated to the women of the former Yugoslavia who were raped. The series was created in the period between 1995 and 1997. The entire installation measures 75” by 25” and is done on

Vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anim ...

using ink and watercolor medium.

War Subjects

War Subjects is composed of 75” by 50” ink and watercolor drawings, which are “the recombined war body of melancholic historical fragments.”

Recombinants

Recombinants are a series of drawings, collages, and paintings that speak to the intersection of plant, human, animal and technological bodies. The piece contains visual and intellectual influences derivative of the Cyborg Manifesto.

Performance work

Duration performance

Wilding gave a performance/lecture on the politics of Information Technology and its relation to femininity as a consequence of the global reconstruction of telecommunication.

Waiting

Wilding performed this piece in Womanhouse while sitting down and rocking back and forth. Waiting is a dramatic monologue that shows the passage of time and that throughout every stage - childhood, teenage years, motherhood, and old age - of her life a woman is waiting to feel beautiful. She is waiting to experience life and to feel accepted by herself and society.

Cock and Cunt

This was a role-playing exercise written by Judy Chicago and performed by Wilding and Janice Lester in Womanhouse. This is an interaction between a husband (HE), played by Wilding, and a wife (SHE), played by Lester. Both are wearing comically exaggerated genitalia. It starts in the living room with an argument over dishes and ends in the bedroom where the SHE is murdered by the HE. This play highlights the prevalence and danger of gender roles.

Invitation To A Burning

A mummy-like form filled with plants was burned at the Woman's Building in Los Angeles, California. Individuals participated by filling the burned form with seeds; the seeds sprouted over the course of the three-week installation.

References

faithwilding.refugia.net
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