Friday, May 16, 2014

A.I.R. Gallery’s New Website

We are very excited A.I.R. Gallery’s new website has officially launched! Take a look at the website here: www.airgallery.org.


Okada's Artist page:
http://airgallery.org/artists/katsura-okada/#0_1


Past Okada's Solo Exhibitions:
Katsura Okada | The Re-Origin: After the Last First
January 5 - January 28, 2012
http://airgallery.org/exhibitions/katsura-okada/


Katsura Okada | Eddies: New Installation
February 4 - March 1, 2009


airgallery
Advocating for women in the visual arts since 1972

ABOUT
MISSION STATEMENT
A.I.R. Gallery’s goal is to provide a professional and permanent exhibition space for women artists to present work of quality and diversity. A.I.R. is an artist directed and maintained gallery, providing a sense of community for women and serving as a model for other alternative galleries and organizations. Through lectures, symposia and a Fellowship Program for emerging women artists, A.I.R. Gallery sustains a political awareness and voice, and brings new understanding to old attitudes about women in the­ arts.


A Short History
A.I.R. Gallery (Artists in Residence, Inc.) was established in 1972 as the first not-for-profit, artist-directed and maintained gallery for women artists in the United States.
In 1972, artists Susan Williams and Barbara Zucker were joined by Dotty Attie, Maude Boltz, Mary Grigoriadis, and Nancy Spero and selected fourteen more women artists to form twenty co-founders of A.I.R. Gallery. The group of twenty included Rachel bas-Cohain, Judith Bernstein, Blythe Bohnan, Agnes Denes, Daria Dorosh, Loretta Dunkelman, Harmony Hammond, Laurace James, Nancy Kitchell, Louise Kramer, Anne Healy, Rosemarie Mayer, Patsy Norvell and Howardena Pindell. Together they renovated their first gallery space at 97 Wooster Street in New York City, established policy, and incorporated as a 501c3 not-for-profit organization.

As the governing body of the organization, the New York artist members of A.I.R. determine the direction of the gallery and by majority vote accept new members when there is an opening. Each artist is in charge of her own exhibition; she curates and installs her work, allowing for experimentation and risk not always possible in commercial venues.
The gallery doors opened on September 16, 1972, with ten of the twenty gallery artists. The event was covered by a broad spectrum of publications such as Domus, The New York Times, and Ms. Magazine. From the first year, A.I.R. established an internship for students in art-related majors, hosted community-oriented programs, performances, and discussions on topics of art and feminism, and initiated invitational shows for non-member artists.
In the Spring of 1976, French critic Aline Dallier was asked to curate a show of contemporary French women artists for A.I.R. Combative Acts, Profiles and Voices, co-ordinated by Nancy Spero, was the first in a series of international shows sponsored by the gallery.
Others included:
  • Women Artists from Japan (1978, co-ordinated by Kazuko)
  • Artists from Israel (1979 co-ordinated by Rachel bas-Cohain)
  • Dialectics of Isolation: An Exhibition of Third World Women Artists in the United States (1980, co-curated by Kazuko and Ana Mendieta)
  • Sweden Comes to New York (1981, co-ordinated by Rachel bas-Cohain and Daria Dorosh)
  • Choice (1992, over 750 small works on the theme of reproductive rights)
  • States of the Art (1993, curated by Lowery Sims, Curator of 20th Century Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art)
  • Caught Between Mind and Body (1994, curated by Betti Sue Hertz, of the Bronx Arts Council, on women’s health)
  • Imprint (1994, the first large scale digital print workshop and exhibition, co-ordinated by Daria Dorosh)
  • Domestic Goods: Women Artists from Central Europe (2005, co-ordinated by……. )
  • A.I.R. Expedition Sweden (2010, group show by seven Swedish women artists, coordinated by Daria Dorosh)
An archive on the history of A.I.R. is available at The Downtown Collection of the Fales Library and Special Collections, housed in the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library at New York University.

history


A.I.R. GALLERY | 111 Front Street #228, Brooklyn, NY 11201 | info@airgallery.org  | (212) 255 6651 | Wed - Sun 11-6pm |