A Feminist Tea Party at Winkleman Gallery
Wednesday, March 10th, 2pm
Winkleman Gallery
637 West 27th Street
New York, NY
At 2 o’clock, on the afternoon of March 10th, Suzanne Stroebe and I will host A Feminist Tea Party. The event is part of #class at Winkleman Gallery.
During this month-long exhibition, artists Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida will transform Winkleman Gallery into a think tank for discussions, presentations, and other art-like events engaging in a dialogue about the art market, the gallery model, and “all the unquantifiable, intangible, unpaid aspects of participating in the art world.”
A Feminist Tea Party lies somewhere in between a contemporary consciousness raising group, a panel discussion, a performance, and a joke. Suzanne and I are interested in the history of how women meet and discuss feminist issues. We will revisit the consciousness-raising groups of the 1970s in the context of a mid-20th century tea party. We will conflate past and present with a sense of humor, creating an environment where important, discomfiting issues can be freely discussed in a non-academic, non-art setting.
Our project weds two different conceptions of a tea party: (1) the tea party as historical referent and site of political debate (think: the Boston Tea Party or the Beck/Palin ‘Tea Party’) with (2) the tea party as a gendered and highly-stylized ritual (think: 4 o’clock tea). Both the tea party and consciousness-raising groups offered spaces for dialogue that were simultaneously nurturing and exclusive. In the gallery we will be creating an installation, a table set for tea complete with tablecloths, porcelain cups, and sweets. While maintaing the visual and stylistic protocol of a tea parlor, we will greet visitors/guests in costume and engage with them in a dialogue around contemporary women’s issues.
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Suzanne Stroebe