Hartnett Gallery
Current Exhibition
Sex/Labor
Artists: Antonia Crane, Barbara Nitke, Chichi Castillo, Sasha Waters Freyer, Alyssa Wood, Weixin Zhuang, Katina Bitsicas, Lena Chen, Maggie Oates, David Kim, and Emily Broad
Dates: November 21 - December 18, 2024
Opening Reception: Nov. 21st, 2024
Film Screening: Gowen Room (Lizzie Borden's 1986 Working Girls) with filmmaker: Nov. 21, 5:30 - 7 P.M.
- Artist Statement
When describing the feminism of Lizzie Borden's Working Girls (1986);as defined against her two preceding films Regrouping (1976) and Born in Flames (1983) the critic So Mayer commented:Feminism itself has been curtailed, and made newly urgent, by the need to work within capitalism. Sex/Labor was conceived of in the spirit of Borden's Working Girls, which traces the everyday activities that occur across a day in the life of sex workers. This exhibition brings together contemporary art that elaborates on Borden's depiction of sex work as a job taken up to pay rent, put food on the table, and make art.
The artworks featured in Sex/Labor;made by Antonia Crane, Barbara Nitke, Chichi Castillo, Sasha Waters Freyer, Alyssa Wood, Weixin Zhuang, Katina Bitsicas, Lena Chen, Maggie Oates, David Kim, and Emily Broad;represent both the physical and emotional forms of labor that sex work entails. This labor is constituted by: exhaustion, establishing boundaries, moments of joy and play, and kinship with clients and fellow sex workers that extend beyond the nuclear family. This exhibition does not claim to fully capture all the complexities of sex as a form of labor. Rather, it proposes three things. First, that the history of sex work has a clear significance in contemporary visual culture. Second, its significance can be found in Rochester's local history. The Portable Channel Archive, managed by the Visual Studies Workshop, documents the sex industry's presence in Rochester's downtown area in the 1970s. And third, that the sex workers' rights movement is an urgent matter of our time that relates to larger complications in the distribution of wealth and labor in late capitalism. In a moment when many of us struggle to buy groceries and pay our bills, the decriminalization of sex work could herald a new era for understanding how we work to live.
Thank you to our generous sponsors: The Humanities Center Project; The Little Theater; The Graduate Program in Visual and Cultural Studies; The Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Women Studies; The Hartnett Gallery; Visual Studies Workshop; and the Departments of Art and Art History, Anthropology, English, Film and Media Studies, and Health Humanities and Bioethics
Upcoming
Approaches to Portraiture
Artists: Selections form the collection of Nigel Maister- Russell and Ruth Peck Artistic Director of the UR International Theatre Program
Dates: January 21 - February 21, 2025
Past Exhibitions
Information
- Hartnett Gallery Mission
Enrich the campus and local community by providing opportunities in the Campus Center to experience diverse expressions of culture through visual art
Cultivate skills related to exhibition, curatorial, and preparator practices
Facilitate sustainable opportunities for artists/students through the creation, presentation, and understanding of contemporary art via exhibitions and educational programs
- Contact Us
For the Hartnett Gallery: hartnett@mail.rochester.edu
For other inquiries: wcsa@rochester.edu
- Hours of Operation
For the Harnett Gallery's standard hours, please see Wilson Common's building hours. The standard hours are only during an exhibition. The Gallery is closed when there is no exhibit on display or event scheduled. Hours may change or fluctuate during academic breaks.
- Gallery Space Information
Installation and De-installation Timetable
- The dates scheduled for an exhibition need to include time for the installation and the deinstallation of the exhibition.
- Installation can be expected to take one to three days for less complicated projects. More complicated installations will need to budget more time.
- At the end of deinstallation Hartnett must be returned to the condition it was in at the beginning of the exhibition period.
- If works are not conventionally framed or mounted all aspects of their installation must be pre-approved.
- The Hartnett Advisory Board must give approval prior to installation if any work fits the following criteria:
- Weighs more than 50 lbs.
- Has a dimension exceeding 40”
- Requires any extraordinary management or installation (i.e. suspended from the ceiling)
- Is to be placed on the balcony
Wall Treatment
- Exhibitions must request permission to paint the walls from the Hartnett Advisory Board
Important prohibitions
- The use of double-stick tape or any means of adhesion apart from the use of Quakehold® or GlueDots® (brand specific) is prohibited.
- No exhibition is allowed to block the entrance to the Gallery or the stairs inside.
- The floor cannot be painted or altered.
- Sharpies/permanent markers, ink, watercolor, or stickers are not allowed to be placed directly on Gallery walls.
Lighting
- Lighting cannot be adjusted without proper training from the Advisory Committee.
- Submitting a Proposal
The Hartnett Gallery Advisory Board welcomes proposals for events/performances/exhibitions to be hosted in Hartnett Gallery. Events and performances are encouraged to occur in the space during an exhibition, assuming an exhibition's set up can accommodate your proposal's needs. All events, performances, and exhibitions must be sponsored by a University of Rochester department or student organization. If your department or student organization is interested in hosting an event or exhibition in the Gallery, you can fill out the Hartnett Gallery Proposal Form.
If you have any questions please reach out to Aaron Delehanty