The Philosophical Research Society is pleased to present
WITH THE MOON UNDER OUR FEET
curated by dama
JULY 20 - AUGUST 31, 2024
With The Moon Under Our Feet is an exhibition at The Philosophical Research Society that brings together seven artists whose works merge portraiture, imagined futurity and surrealism. They capture transformation through time and reclaim their bodies as creations of their own making.
In the face of a bleak, urgent reality that our predominantly patriarchal and capitalist realities have created, With The Moon Under Our Feet is a collection of the mystical and symbolic experiences that consider the cultural, social and imaginative representation of female identity as a complex and multifaceted experience. Invoking a feminist renewal of geographies and connections and how we come to terms with this future.
The title is a variation of a quote borrowed from the Book Of Revelations about The Woman and the Dragon and one of the most controversial passages in symbolic history. The esoteric wisdom personified as the goddess Isis, who is a personification of natural philosophy. One interpretation is that this was the Egyptian Isis, who carried the crescent of the moon under her feet and who was robed by the light of the sun. The dragon appears as a symbolic representation of the world, desiring to know and following the woman into the wilderness.
"1. And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2. She was pregnant and crying out in the pain and agony of giving birth."
The exhibition is part of the monthly curatorial program by dama titled Surrealist Study Group (SSG) hosted at PRS’s Library every second Friday of each month. The series of events present a critical inquiry into the works of women artists and writers associated with Surrealism.
Surrealism is a movement that walks the margins, whether these margins belong to society, culture, or gender. Male surrealist authors have often idealized the figure of woman as inspiration and creator with privileged access to the unconscious. Seen as muses by these authors, women are sacralized and reified, while simultaneously regarded as a currency of exchange and seduction. Surrealist art began as a reflection on societal norms, borne out of a desire to break them. However, many of the themes presented in the art of early female surrealists - such as the socially alienating experience of femininity - continue to remain relevant for women today. In a sense, their art stands as a testament to just how little has changed.
Curated by dama at Hansell Gallery this group exhibition features works by Lezley Saar, Penny Slinger, María Adela Díaz, Cindy Rehm, Regina Herod, Jaklin Romine and Sarah Reyes.
Situated in the back parking lot of the PRS campus, the Hansell Gallery has housed various installations, exhibitions and performances through a wide scope of visiting and contributing artists. Gallery soundscape is a collaboration between artists dama and Adele Bertei as part of their sound project titled Fantomette.
Cover Art Cosmic Connection, by Penny Slinger.
In the face of a bleak, urgent reality that our predominantly patriarchal and capitalist realities have created, With The Moon Under Our Feet is a collection of the mystical and symbolic experiences that consider the cultural, social and imaginative representation of female identity as a complex and multifaceted experience. Invoking a feminist renewal of geographies and connections and how we come to terms with this future.
The title is a variation of a quote borrowed from the Book Of Revelations about The Woman and the Dragon and one of the most controversial passages in symbolic history. The esoteric wisdom personified as the goddess Isis, who is a personification of natural philosophy. One interpretation is that this was the Egyptian Isis, who carried the crescent of the moon under her feet and who was robed by the light of the sun. The dragon appears as a symbolic representation of the world, desiring to know and following the woman into the wilderness.
"1. And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2. She was pregnant and crying out in the pain and agony of giving birth."
The exhibition is part of the monthly curatorial program by dama titled Surrealist Study Group (SSG) hosted at PRS’s Library every second Friday of each month. The series of events present a critical inquiry into the works of women artists and writers associated with Surrealism.
Surrealism is a movement that walks the margins, whether these margins belong to society, culture, or gender. Male surrealist authors have often idealized the figure of woman as inspiration and creator with privileged access to the unconscious. Seen as muses by these authors, women are sacralized and reified, while simultaneously regarded as a currency of exchange and seduction. Surrealist art began as a reflection on societal norms, borne out of a desire to break them. However, many of the themes presented in the art of early female surrealists - such as the socially alienating experience of femininity - continue to remain relevant for women today. In a sense, their art stands as a testament to just how little has changed.
Curated by dama at Hansell Gallery this group exhibition features works by Lezley Saar, Penny Slinger, María Adela Díaz, Cindy Rehm, Regina Herod, Jaklin Romine and Sarah Reyes.
Situated in the back parking lot of the PRS campus, the Hansell Gallery has housed various installations, exhibitions and performances through a wide scope of visiting and contributing artists. Gallery soundscape is a collaboration between artists dama and Adele Bertei as part of their sound project titled Fantomette.
Cover Art Cosmic Connection, by Penny Slinger.
ARTISTS BIOS
Penny Slinger (b. 1947) is a UK born and Los Angeles-based artist who has been exploring feminism, eroticism and mysticism in her art for over fifty years. Her early work was inspired by Surrealism, she went on to study and incorporate Tantra into her life and work. She continues to work in many mediums including collage, photography, drawing, sculpture/assemblage, poetry, performance arts and video, focusing on the liberation of the feminine. She is currently represented by Blum, LA and Richard Saltoun, UK.
Lezley Saar (b. 1953) is a Los Angeles based artist. Saar studied at L’Institut Français de Photographie in Paris, and San Francisco State University before receiving her BA from California State University Northridge in 1978. Saar’s mixed media works include paintings, drawings, banners, altered books, photography, collages, dioramas, and installations. Her various series; The Atheneum, Anomalies, Mulatto Nation, Tooth Hut, Autists’ Fables, Madwoman in the Attic, Monad, Gender Renaissance, A Conjuring of Conjurors, and Black Garden, deal with notions of identity, race, gender, beauty, mysticism, sanity and normalcy. Saar is included in museum collections such as, LACMA, MOCA, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Kemper Museum, The Ackland Art Museum, The Crocker Art Museum, California African American Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Hessel Museum of Art, The Hood Museum Dartmouth, and The Santa Barbara Museum of Art. She is currently represented by Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles, and Various Small Fires Gallery in Asia.
Regina Herod (b. 1962) is a Los Angeles based artist and arts educator. Her works have been exhibited in California, New York and Oregon galleries and she has collaborated in performances at The Broad Museum and The Wende Museum. Her work examines historized trauma within the context of race, socio-economic disenfranchisement and systemic oppression. In sculpture, she conflates materials such as wood, wax, metal and paper as surrealistic metaphors, in order to re-imagine the relevance between current and colonized history and the emotional terrains and circumstance that remain.
Cindy Rehm (b. 1966) is a Los Angeles-based artist and educator. She serves as co-facilitator of the Cixous Reading Group and is co-founder of the feminist centered projects Craftswoman House and Feminist Love Letters. In 2021, she launched HEXENTEXTE, a collaborative project at the intersection of image, text, and the body. Rehm’s interdisciplinary practice moves between drawing, performance, and video to address the cultural suppression of women’s narratives and the legacy of hysteria. Her first book, Transference, was released by Curious Publishing in 2022. The Formless is What Keeps Bleeding was published by HEXENTEXTE in the spring of 2024.
María Adela Díaz (b. 1973) is a multidisciplinary Latinx artist, born in Guatemala. Díaz uses her body as a starting point to explore the complex essence and sublimity of the female body, her work points out issues that deal with the Latin American diaspora, addressing the invisibility of women in contemporary societies. Her work asks questions about the roles and complexities of gender, power, and identity. Through performance, installations and video, Diaz work points out social-political issues related to subjects like immigration, discrimination philosophies. She has participated in many art exhibitions around the world, like: Centre Pompidou, Paris France, Ex-Teresa Arte Actual, México City, Museum of Contemporary Art, San José Costa Rica, Somerset House, London UK, among others.Diaz lives and works in Ventura, California.
Jaklin Romine (b. 1985) was born in Burbank, California, and currently lives in Pasadena. She is a full-time wheelchair user due to a spinal cord injury 14 years ago. Jaklin’s art explores acts of care and giving, and celebration of bodies and form, using materials ranging from flowers to draped fabrics to manipulated foam. Her installations are multi-dimensional explorations of her body and life that take the photographic medium and elevate it to a sculpture-installation. Her practice confronts the intersection of feminist ideals that are formed by her identity as a disabled, queer, latinx, poc, living in the Southern California landscape. She studied Studio Arts at Cal State LA, and got her Masters of Fine Art at CalArts . Romine has been working professionally since 2015 and has been exhibiting in multiple group exhibitions across Los Angeles. Romine has lectured on her work at UCLA, NY Film Academy, Chapman University, SCRIPTS College, Torrance Art Museum, Cal Arts, as part of the ArtChangeUS: Arts in a Changing America five year initiative.
Sarah Reyes (b. 1991) is from Texas and currently lives and works in rural upstate New York. She studied in Texas at the Wildflower School of Botanical Medicine and The University of Texas at Austin. She follows landscape closely both interior and exterior. She considers her work a collaboration of spirit to transcribe qualities of time.
Lezley Saar (b. 1953) is a Los Angeles based artist. Saar studied at L’Institut Français de Photographie in Paris, and San Francisco State University before receiving her BA from California State University Northridge in 1978. Saar’s mixed media works include paintings, drawings, banners, altered books, photography, collages, dioramas, and installations. Her various series; The Atheneum, Anomalies, Mulatto Nation, Tooth Hut, Autists’ Fables, Madwoman in the Attic, Monad, Gender Renaissance, A Conjuring of Conjurors, and Black Garden, deal with notions of identity, race, gender, beauty, mysticism, sanity and normalcy. Saar is included in museum collections such as, LACMA, MOCA, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Kemper Museum, The Ackland Art Museum, The Crocker Art Museum, California African American Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Hessel Museum of Art, The Hood Museum Dartmouth, and The Santa Barbara Museum of Art. She is currently represented by Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles, and Various Small Fires Gallery in Asia.
Regina Herod (b. 1962) is a Los Angeles based artist and arts educator. Her works have been exhibited in California, New York and Oregon galleries and she has collaborated in performances at The Broad Museum and The Wende Museum. Her work examines historized trauma within the context of race, socio-economic disenfranchisement and systemic oppression. In sculpture, she conflates materials such as wood, wax, metal and paper as surrealistic metaphors, in order to re-imagine the relevance between current and colonized history and the emotional terrains and circumstance that remain.
Cindy Rehm (b. 1966) is a Los Angeles-based artist and educator. She serves as co-facilitator of the Cixous Reading Group and is co-founder of the feminist centered projects Craftswoman House and Feminist Love Letters. In 2021, she launched HEXENTEXTE, a collaborative project at the intersection of image, text, and the body. Rehm’s interdisciplinary practice moves between drawing, performance, and video to address the cultural suppression of women’s narratives and the legacy of hysteria. Her first book, Transference, was released by Curious Publishing in 2022. The Formless is What Keeps Bleeding was published by HEXENTEXTE in the spring of 2024.
María Adela Díaz (b. 1973) is a multidisciplinary Latinx artist, born in Guatemala. Díaz uses her body as a starting point to explore the complex essence and sublimity of the female body, her work points out issues that deal with the Latin American diaspora, addressing the invisibility of women in contemporary societies. Her work asks questions about the roles and complexities of gender, power, and identity. Through performance, installations and video, Diaz work points out social-political issues related to subjects like immigration, discrimination philosophies. She has participated in many art exhibitions around the world, like: Centre Pompidou, Paris France, Ex-Teresa Arte Actual, México City, Museum of Contemporary Art, San José Costa Rica, Somerset House, London UK, among others.Diaz lives and works in Ventura, California.
Jaklin Romine (b. 1985) was born in Burbank, California, and currently lives in Pasadena. She is a full-time wheelchair user due to a spinal cord injury 14 years ago. Jaklin’s art explores acts of care and giving, and celebration of bodies and form, using materials ranging from flowers to draped fabrics to manipulated foam. Her installations are multi-dimensional explorations of her body and life that take the photographic medium and elevate it to a sculpture-installation. Her practice confronts the intersection of feminist ideals that are formed by her identity as a disabled, queer, latinx, poc, living in the Southern California landscape. She studied Studio Arts at Cal State LA, and got her Masters of Fine Art at CalArts . Romine has been working professionally since 2015 and has been exhibiting in multiple group exhibitions across Los Angeles. Romine has lectured on her work at UCLA, NY Film Academy, Chapman University, SCRIPTS College, Torrance Art Museum, Cal Arts, as part of the ArtChangeUS: Arts in a Changing America five year initiative.
Sarah Reyes (b. 1991) is from Texas and currently lives and works in rural upstate New York. She studied in Texas at the Wildflower School of Botanical Medicine and The University of Texas at Austin. She follows landscape closely both interior and exterior. She considers her work a collaboration of spirit to transcribe qualities of time.
COLLABORATORS
dama (b. 1987) aka Amanda Maciel Antunes is a Brazilian artist based in Los Angeles. Her transdisciplinary practice merges language and durational performance to create paintings, photography, sculpture, sound, film and assemblage. She is an autodidact and works in collaboration with public libraries, nature and shared spaces as points of departure, reflecting on the selective nature of memory, inherent language and anthropological references. Antunes has shown nationally and internationally and most recently published her book Second Birth with HEXENTEXTE. She is also a librarian at the Philosophical Research Society, where she hosts a monthly Study Group on women Surrealists.
Adele Bertei (b. 1955) is a storyteller. A founding member of musical insurrectionists the Contortions and personal assistant to Brian Eno, Bertei was lead singer for the Bloods, the first out, queer, all women-rock band. She played a lead character in Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames, and films of Bertei reading her poetry (The Ragazzi Manifesto) and The Offenders were acquired for MOMA’s permanent collection. Published works include the compilation The New Fuck You: Adventures in Lesbian Reading by editor Eileen Myles, Peter and the Wolves (memoir, Smog Veil), Why Labelle Matters (University of Texas Press). and Twist:Tales of a Queer Girlhood (memoir, ZE Books). Upcoming books are Sinead O’Connor’s Universal Mother (Bloomsbury), and No New York (Faber & Faber).
Dr. Ilene Susan Fort (b. 1949) formerly Senior Curator of American Art, and The Gail and John Liebes Curator of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), is now Curator Emerita at LACMA and Senior Scholar at the Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities at Rutgers University, 2018 - 2019. A leading scholar in her field, Dr. Fort has organized landmark exhibitions and published numerous articles, catalogues, and books on a variety of topics. She curated and wrote the accompanying catalogues for The Flag Paintings of Childe Hassam (1986); The Figure in American Sculpture: A Question of Modernity (1996); American Paintings in Southern California Collections (1996); Made in California (with Stephanie Barron and Sheri Bernstein) (2000-2001); Manly Pursuits: The Sporting Images of Thomas Eakins (2010); and In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures Of Women Artists In Mexico And The United States (2011); In Wonderland traveled to the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) (June 7–September 3, 2012), and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City (September 27, 2012–January 13, 2013).
Adele Bertei (b. 1955) is a storyteller. A founding member of musical insurrectionists the Contortions and personal assistant to Brian Eno, Bertei was lead singer for the Bloods, the first out, queer, all women-rock band. She played a lead character in Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames, and films of Bertei reading her poetry (The Ragazzi Manifesto) and The Offenders were acquired for MOMA’s permanent collection. Published works include the compilation The New Fuck You: Adventures in Lesbian Reading by editor Eileen Myles, Peter and the Wolves (memoir, Smog Veil), Why Labelle Matters (University of Texas Press). and Twist:Tales of a Queer Girlhood (memoir, ZE Books). Upcoming books are Sinead O’Connor’s Universal Mother (Bloomsbury), and No New York (Faber & Faber).
Dr. Ilene Susan Fort (b. 1949) formerly Senior Curator of American Art, and The Gail and John Liebes Curator of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), is now Curator Emerita at LACMA and Senior Scholar at the Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities at Rutgers University, 2018 - 2019. A leading scholar in her field, Dr. Fort has organized landmark exhibitions and published numerous articles, catalogues, and books on a variety of topics. She curated and wrote the accompanying catalogues for The Flag Paintings of Childe Hassam (1986); The Figure in American Sculpture: A Question of Modernity (1996); American Paintings in Southern California Collections (1996); Made in California (with Stephanie Barron and Sheri Bernstein) (2000-2001); Manly Pursuits: The Sporting Images of Thomas Eakins (2010); and In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures Of Women Artists In Mexico And The United States (2011); In Wonderland traveled to the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) (June 7–September 3, 2012), and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City (September 27, 2012–January 13, 2013).
SUPPORTING EVENTS:
JULY 20, 2024
OPENING RECEPTION
1 - 5 PM
JULY 20, 2024
CINDY REHM “SCRYING MOON” PERFORMANCE
3 - 3:30 PM
JULY 27, 2024
PENNY SLINGER “AN EXORCISM” BOOK RELEASE AND FILM SCREENING
7 - 9 PM
AUGUST 17, 2024
ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION WITH HISTORIAN/CURATOR DR. ILENE SUSAN FORT
7 - 9 PM
AUGUST 9, 2024
SURREALISTS STUDY GROUP WITH DAMA
6:30 - 8 PM
AUGUST 31, 2024
CLOSING RECEPTION AND CURATOR’S WALK-THRU
2 - 5 PM
JULY 20, 2024
OPENING RECEPTION
1 - 5 PM
JULY 20, 2024
CINDY REHM “SCRYING MOON” PERFORMANCE
3 - 3:30 PM
JULY 27, 2024
PENNY SLINGER “AN EXORCISM” BOOK RELEASE AND FILM SCREENING
7 - 9 PM
AUGUST 17, 2024
ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION WITH HISTORIAN/CURATOR DR. ILENE SUSAN FORT
7 - 9 PM
AUGUST 9, 2024
SURREALISTS STUDY GROUP WITH DAMA
6:30 - 8 PM
AUGUST 31, 2024
CLOSING RECEPTION AND CURATOR’S WALK-THRU
2 - 5 PM
Please email [email protected] or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.
Visit www.prs.org to view current event listings, course offerings, shop the online bookstore,
and sign up for email announcements.
Visit www.prs.org to view current event listings, course offerings, shop the online bookstore,
and sign up for email announcements.
