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    Charged Sites: Radka Donnell's Art Quilts

    Charged Sites: Radka Donnell's Art Quilts Image gallery

    San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles

    September 2-November 2, 2008

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    In her introduction to Radka Donnell's groundbreaking book, Quilts as Women's Art: A Quilt Poetics (1990), Elaine Hedges wrote, Radically, Donnell returns the quilt to its origins on the bed and in the needs of the human body. She explores many richly interrelated issues: cloth as the body's intimate covering; the bed as the charged site of birth, death, and sex; and the quilt's tactile and sensual properties. Through these explorations she arrives at a reading of the quilt as itself a charged site. Charged Sites is the first west coast retrospective of the remarkable 40-year career of feminist art quilter, art therapist, and author Radka Donnell. The exhibit presents her bold, painterly, and abstract expressionist visual aesthetic as an outgrowth of her exploration of the quilt and the bed as emotionally and psychologically charged sites. Donnell’s bedsize art quilts speak powerfully to the human need for separateness and connection, individual selfrealization and community engagement. The exhibit also includes works by other artists who have dared to directly engage the highly charged nature of beds and quilts in the visual content of their work. Adam Ellyson’s In Cold Blood (2004) documents domestic violence, while Mia Rozmyn’s Women and Their Quilts (1995) depicts the dual role quiltmaking plays in women’s lives as a source of comfort and an impetus to self-exploration. Faith Ringgold’s Bitter Nest III: Lovers in Paris (1988) captures a young couple’s anticipation of a sexual encounter that, within the context of the Bitter Nest Series, is shown to have unintended consequences for a mother-daughter relationship. More importantly as it relates to Donnell’s discussion of the productive vs. oppressive nature of women’s relationship to silence, Ringgold’s Bitter Nest Series suggests a link between women’s experience of childbirth, losing the ability to speak for themselves, and fiber art-making. Radka Donnell offers an intriguing explanation why art historians, art critics and major arts institutions have, by and large, not taken quilts seriously as an art form. Could it be that people unconsciously bring to quilts the same ambivalent feelings of both fear and joy they experience in connection with major rites of passage associated with beds—birth, sex and death?

    • Ticket Info

      Tickets: $5-$6.50, Children 13 & under free

      Info Phone: 408-971-0323 x14

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    • Dates & Times

      Dates:
      September 2-November 2, 2008

      Times:
      Gallery Hours:
      Tues-Sun: 10am-5pm
      First Friday of the month: 8-11pm

    • Venue Info

      San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles

      520 S. 1st Street San Jose, CA 95113

      Full map and directions

    • Parking Info

      Metered street parking in front of museum; parking lots at Market and San Salvador.

    • Accessibility Info

    • NOTE: We do our best to ensure all information is accurate. However it's a good idea to visit the official website or call the venue to verify the information.

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      • Event Name: Charged Sites: Radka Donnell's Art Quilts
        "The Reason Quilts aren't Taken Seriously as Art"
        Comment posted by: SusanLK (Massachusetts) from Massachusetts, Apr 25, 2009

        Quilts are not taken seriously for the simple reason that they are largely WOMEN'S art and women's work is still generally not taken seriously. Women doing art in the same medium as men may get some... Expand

        Quilts are not taken seriously for the simple reason that they are largely WOMEN'S art and women's work is still generally not taken seriously. Women doing art in the same medium as men may get some attention, but quilts are predominantly made BY women and when men make them, the medium will get attention. Collapse

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