Picturing the Modern Amazon

Abstract

This conversation, held on May 18, 2000, explores the relationships between some of the bodybuilders and artists, and the three curators who took part in the exhibition Picturing the Modern Amazon, held at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York from March 30 to June 25, 2000. Participants included bodybuilders Andrulla Blanchette and Laurie Fierstein (also a co-curator), artists Bailey Doogan and Seth Michael Forman, and co-curators Judith Stein and Joanna Frueh. It was moderated by Janet A. Kaplan.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Janet A. Kaplan

Janet A. Kaplan, Executive Editor of Art Journal, is Professor of Art History at Moore College of Art & Design, Graduate Faculty Advisor in the MFA in Fine Arts program at Vermont College, and a visiting professor at the NYU Institute of Fine Arts. Author of Remedios Varo: Unexpected Journeys, she is also a consultant for artist-in-residence projects at the Rosenbach Museum and Library.

Bailey Doogan

Bailey Doogan is Professor Emerita of Painting and Drawing at the University of Arizona. For the past fifteen years, her subject has been the body and its language. This work has been exhibited widely.

Laurie Fierstein

Laurie Fierstein is an internationally known bodybuilder and the principal contemporary figure pioneering creative ways of broadening the discussion about muscular women. She was the creator and co-curator of Picturing the Modern Amazon and produced the watershed performances, Celebration of the Most Awesome Female Muscle in the World (1993) and Evolution F (1995).

Seth Michael Forman

Seth Michael Forman is an artist who lives and works in Brooklyn. His work is represented by Adam Baumgold Fine Art in New York and has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States. Forman teaches drawing and painting at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Joanna Frueh

Joanna Frueh is an art critic, art historian, and performance artist. Her most recent book is Monster/Beauty: Building the Body of Love (University of California Press, 2001). She is Professor of Art History at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Judith Stein

Pew Fellowship recipient Judith Stein was curator of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1981 to 1994, where she organized over ninety contemporary art exhibitions. Her current project is a cultural biography of art dealer Richard Bellamy.