They are beaded, embroidered and artfully hung on a gallery wall, but the fact remains: they are panty liners. In the newest exhibition of the Anatomy in the Gallery series, the International Museum of Surgical Science features Laurel Roth’s “Hope Chest,” a potpourri of sanitary napkins bedecked in thread and outlined in plastic beads.
Laughable as it all sounds, Roth’s unexpected medium of choice encourages a look at the commercialization and marketing of female fertility. Her “Birth Control Series,” featuring napkins adorned with the pastel-colored names of the chemicals that make up hormonal contraceptives, is jarringly evocative of the tender Home Sweet Home samplers decking the walls of so many country homemakers. Roth heightens the effect with a “PMS Quilt” of four-letter-words boldly scripted onto her napkins, then crocheted together in blazing red yarn.
The juxtaposition of tender woman-craft and comparably shocking vulgarity is not a new theme—greeting cards with “Happy F—ing Birthday!” can be found on Etsy for as little as four dollars a pop. But Roth’s use of alternative media truly is a surprise, and her wry incorporation of the chemicals women so willingly pump into their bodies imparts an air of concerned warning, leaving women to wonder just how their supposedly delicate bodies can handle what they themselves have subjected them to. (Jaime Calder)
The Craft of Reparations: DePaul Art Museum Connects Local and International State Violence “Remaking the Exceptional: Tea, Torture, and Reparations | Chicago to Guantánamo” at the DePaul Art Museum examines the question of reparations by tackling two cases: the well-documented tragedy of Chicago police torture and the ongoing international scandal of Guantánamo Bay.
All Too Real: A Review of “Not All Realisms” at The Smart Museum In the compelling exhibition currently on display at the Smart Museum, photographs tell the story of the sixties in Africa. It was a decade of change, resistance, revolution and hard-won independence in many African countries.
The Friction of History: A Review of Sky Hopinka at the Block Museum Merging metaphor and direct accounts of Fort Marion, Hopinka’s “Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer” offers perspectives on the long and complex reality of American colonialism told through this site of annihilation.
A Legacy Captured: A Review of Rosalie Favell at the Block Museum In this exhibition, Métis artist Rosalie Favell shows over one hundred portraits of indigenous artists, musicians, arts educators and writers she’s met on her travels and during her residency in Evanston, drawing out her subjects’ inner spirit animals.
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