LECTURE CANCELLED! MARY KELLY @ The Hammer Museum on Thursday

It was cancelled. Not sure why.... :(We live and participate in this age of over-achievers striving for the "ultimate" in career and personal trajectories. There are the pedigrees of education, one's "title" in the workplace, an idealistic love life, family, and capitalist status symbols. We make ourselves crazy. That is my rant for the moment. Segueing to:

Without a doubt Mary Kelly is one of the most important (female) artists of our time. Her Post-Partum Document was a bit of a scandal in the 1970s. A book of the work was later published in the 1980s which has images of her artwork along with often daily writings from a set period of time after giving birth. Her insights are as valuable today as they were 30 years ago. Her writing of the balance in being a nurturing woman in the traditional sense juxtaposed with the mixed bag of guilt vs. fulfillment she receives from her art and work are what most of us can truly understand, both male and female. Of course there is even more than PPD to consider.

As artist Dan Graham said in his MoCA conversation last week, "Every artist should also be a writer," Mary Kelly is indeed that and more. Her work is art, analysis, and essential.

You have the opportunity to hear her speak (for free) in Los Angeles at the Hammer Museum this THURSDAY.

FEB 26 THU 7:00pm
Hammer Lectures

UCLA Department of Art: Mary Kelly

Mary Kelly has contributed extensively to the discourse of feminism and postmodernism through her large-scale narrative installations and theoretical writings. Her recent exhibitions include the 2008 Biennale of Sydney; Documenta XII, Kassel, 2007; WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2007; and the 2004 Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She is the author of Post-Partum Document (1983) and Imaging Desire (1996). She is a professor in the Department of Art at UCLA.