“I’m interested in cultural phenomena that symbolize oddness and excess. Currently I’m looking at competitive table-setting competitions, home decorating in the era of Reaganomics, and Louise Linton’s infamous Instagram post full of designer goods and hurt feelings.” So answered Katherine Vetne when asked about the sources of inspiration and influence for her metal art.

http://katherinevetne.com

This was one of five question posed to many of the women artists in a show currently on view at the National Museum for Women Artists in Washington, D.C., titled Heavy Metal.

 

It is another show I’m not able to visit, but that caught my interest for a number of reasons. For one, the exhibit is the 5th installment of a Women to Watch series, where artists are found through collaboration between outreach committees and museum curators, thus widening the circle of potential participants that might otherwise escape curators’ attention.

Secondly, I really like the project of giving the same questions to almost all of the artists and then putting their answers on the website. Beyond asking what they like best about working with metal and how the current work emerges from their overall body of work, what their favorite tool is, and the above mentioned query about inspiration, they are also asked which recent exhibit they saw made the biggest impression. In combination you really learn something about each artist that could never be conveyed through a simple artist statement alone, and the comparison between the participating artists is enlightening and helps to reflect on their work.

https://blog.nmwa.org/tag/heavy-metal/

Third, the title of the show caught my attention.  Too cutesy by far, I thought first. But when you are told this show is touching on gender discrimination with metal work being a male domain, it elicits some curiosity, particularly when viewing the lightness, almost ephemeral quality of many of the displayed object. More importantly, though, the title could perhaps refer to the heavy topics tackled by many of the works, from environmental destruction to the Syrian war.

Here is a video of one of the participating artists, whose work Palmyra captures the grief over the war in Syria in ways that are palpable even if you just see a photograph of the artwork.

 

 

Overall, a show of women working in notably diverse ways with metal, from process to size of the artworks is enlightening. Give it  look. https://nmwa.org/exhibitions/heavy-metal 

 

Photographs today are of metal details caught on camera in my walk abouts.