Email: heleneaylon@AOL.COM URL: The Artist is willing to travel? Yes Honors, grants, awards the Artist has received: NYSCA 01: For video : "My Clean Days", "My Bridal Chamber" For Installations: "My Bridal Chamber" "My Wailing Wall" Significant employment and memberships: n/a Education and degrees: Studied with Ad Reinhardt, BA Cum Laude 1960 Antioch College Women's Studies Payment preferences: S/he is interested in doing commission work only S/he has a minimum fee Minimum fee is Screening Presentations $750 plus travel and lodging; $3000 for installation, includes presentation. Digital proficiencies: F Bibliography (reviews, publications): SELECTED EXHIBITIONS Proj.Central Break / Bulging Spread, (A 1978 6' x 8' Breaking) "Recent Acquisitions," SF MoMA (date to be announced) Proj.2002 The Last Supper, San Francisco Theological Seminary of at in San Anselmo - 11/03 opening 2 Kensington Rd. Proj.2002 The Partition Is In Place But The Service Can't Begin, Phil. J. Mus.12/05 opening (615 N. Broad St.) 2001 My Notebooks installation, Women's Studies Research Center Brandeis University 2001 My Bridal Chamber, installation, Ann Loeb Bronfman Gallery, Washington DC 2000 The Liberation of G-d , Jewish Museum, NYC - recent aquisitions Faith:The Impact of Judeo/Christian Religion on Art at the Millennium (group with Serrano, Turrell, ...), Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, CT 2000 The Body, Performance, Process, "The American Century," Whitney Museum, NYC (intro.Chrissy Isles + work of Mendieta & Wilke) Friendships in Arcadia: Writers on Artists at Yaddo in the 90's, Art In General, NYC (traveled to The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY) 1999 Breaking With Greatest Resistance, "Zero-G: When Gravity Becomes Form" (group show), Whitney Museum, Stamford, CT Breaking Twenty Years Later (performance introduced by Flora Biddle), Whitney Museum, Stamford, CT 25/25, Southern Exposure/Project Artaud, San Francisco, CA 1998 Mirror Covering (group show), Bellevue Art Museum, WA 1997 The Women's Section, "Rage/Resolution" (group with Ida Applebroog, Nan Goldin, Nancy Spero), Hebrew Union College, NYC 1996 - 97 The Liberation of G-d, "Too Jewish," Jewish Museum, NYC (group with H. Wilke, R. Pondick, Art Speigelman) toured: SF Jewish Museum 9/96-1/97; Armand Hammer Museum, UCLA, 1/97-3/97; The Contemporary/Baltimore, 4/97- 6/97; Nat'l Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, 7/97-12/97 1995 two sacs en route, Jumbotron, Times Square, NYC (50th Anniv. Hiro./ N.) Bridge of Knots, UC Berkeley Museum, CA (curated by Larry Rinder) 1994 Paintings in Transition (w. Dove Bradshaw), Aldrich Museum, Ridgef., CT Stone sacs: Arab & Jewish Women, Artists Space, NYC Bridge of Knots, Harn Museum, Gainseville, FL 1993 Bridge of Knots, Knoxville Museum, TN (facade installation) Bridge of Knots, video (sound by Meredith Monk) Songs of Retribution, Anderson Gallery, NYC (curated by Nancy Spero) 1992 The Earth Ambulance 1982-1992, Creative Time, Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, NYC (curated by Cee Brown) 1991 Burning in Hell, Franklin Furnace, NY (book art curated by Nancy Spero) 1990 Up Front/Land Art, Municipal Art Society, NYC (curated by Mierle Ukeles) 1989 Stretchers, Cleveland Ctr. for Contemporary Art, OH (show with Christo) Stretchers and The Trial of the Sands of Time (performance), P.S.1, LIC 1987 Project Conexus, Mus. of Contemporary Hispanic Art, NYC (traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil) Reflections on Survival (group), Women's Building, Los Angeles, CA 1984 L'Esprit Encyclopedique (group), Thompson Square Public Library, NYC 1979 Formations (solo), Betty Parsons Gallery, NYC Formations Breaking (solo)White Columns Gal., NYC (aka112 W'kshop) New York: A Selection from the Last Ten Years Otis Art Institute, LA, CA 1978 Nine Artists' Books (group), toured: Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia; UC Irvine; Oberlin College, OH; UCSD Formations (solo), Grapestake Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1976 Paintings That Change in Time (solo) M.I.T.- Mass. Institute of Technology, (curated by Wayne Anderson) Paintings That Change in Time (solo), Grapestake Gallery, S.F., CA Abstraction in Metal, on Canvas and Paper (group), Dart Gallery, Chicago, IL 1975 Six Painters, Six Attitudes (group), Oakland Museum, CA Paintings that Change in Time (solo), Susan Caldwell Gallery, NYC Paintings that Change in Time (solo), Betty Parsons Gallery, NYC 1972 Shadowlands I and II (solo), Max Hutchinson Gallery, NYC Soho Scene (group), Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY Painting & Sculpture Today (group), Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana 1971 Four Painters (group), Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY 1971 Beaux Arts Twenty Fifth Anniversary Exhibition, Columbus, OH 1970 Lyrical Abstraction, toured: Aldrich Museum; Phoenix Museum; Philadelphia Civic Center; Whitney Museum Plexi and metal paintings, Max Hutchinson Gallery, NYC Two Generations of Color Painting, University of Pa., Philadelphia SELECTED AWARDS AND GRANTS 2001 NY STATE COUNCIL ON THE ARTS 2000 Yaddo-MacArthur annual award for a residency sponsorship 1999 Yaddo-Phillip Morris award for "an artist who extends boundaries of art" 1995 - 02 Sponsored Artist of NY Foundation for the Arts 1995 - 96 Pollock Krasner Foundation award 1995 Sponsored installation by New York State Council on the Arts; grant from Art Matters, two sacs en route, SONY Jumbotron, Times Square, NYC. 1993 NY Foundation for the Arts, New Genre 1990 Gottlieb Foundation for painting and sculpture 1989 Harvestworks Media- video (Inquiry: The Trial of the Sands of Time) 1988 Art and Urban Resources, NYC, award studio for one year for painting NY Foundation for the Arts, New Genre 1981 National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Artist Grant 1979 CAPS -- Painting 1973 National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Artist Grant SELECTED PRESS 2001 BOSTON GLOBE, MICHAEL PAULSON, 9/21 an un orthodox artist re: my notebooks 2001 New York Times, Dinitia Smith, 7/19 profile, re: My Bridal Chamber 2001 Around Town , WETA TV, Wash. DC, Best Bets, My Bridal Chamber 2001 Washington City Paper, Louis Jacobson, My Bridal Chamber, 6/1 2001 NPR Wash. DC re My Bridal Chamber 5/16a 2001 Washington Post, Jessica Dawson 8/23 A Feminist's Conflicts of Faith 2001 The Intowner DC August P.15 Anthony L. Harvey My Bridal Chamber 2000 Friendships in Arcadia: Writers and Artists at Yaddo in the Nineties, Cullen Murphy (ed. of Atlantic Monthly) The New York Times, Grace Glueck, review (re: Aldrich show, mention) 1999 Art in America, "Deconstructing The Torah," Robert Berlind, October, feature P.142 - 147 The New York Times, Roberta Smith, August 6, review (re: When Gravity Becomes Form) The New York Times, William Zimmer, July 18, review (re: Gravity...) Tikkun magazine, "Helène Aylon, Feminism, and God," Nan Fink Gefen, March/April Bridges, "A Conversation Between Artist Helène Aylon and Rabbi Rolando Matalon," Vol.8 (cover story) Catalogue essay for Southern Exposure gallery / Project Artaud San Francisco by Connie Lewallen ( Sr. curator, Berkeley Museum) 1998 Cross Currents: Journal of the Association for Religion & Intellectual Life My Notebooks review by R. Ost (cover story) 1997 The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 24, Edwad Sozanski, review Baltimore Sun, "A World Apart, Together in Hope," Jean Marabella, June 10, (re: meeting of H. Aylon and Lea Rabin) Los Angeles Times, "'Too Jewish?' Good Query," Christopher Knight, February 4, group review (cited at length) Los Angeles Times Calendar, "'Too Jewish?' Hardly," Kristine McKenna, February 2, group review (cited at length) Detour Magazine, "How Jewish is 'Too Jewish?'" Christopher Miles, Feb., review (cited) 1996 Artforum, "Too Jewish?" Carol Ockman, September, group review (cited) San Francisco Chronicle, "Artful Look at Jewish Identity," Kenneth Baker, September 16, group review (cited) Yaddo Newsletter, "Public Artists at Yaddo," Nina Castelli Sundell, Fall Jerusalem Report, "The Arts," Calev Ben-David, May 2, review (cited) Village Voice, "Jewish Wry," Leslie Camhi, Apr. 2, review (cited at length) The New York Times, Michael Kimmelman, March 8, review (cited) 1995 Art in America, Peter Selz, #83 - December, review El Nuevo Dia, "Ambulancia de La Tierra," Leslie Knowlton, August 27 University Art Museum Calendar (Berkeley), "Helène Aylon, Bridge of Knots," Lawrence Rinder (curator), July/August 1994 Artweek, "Helène Aylon at the University Art Museum, Berkeley," Anthony Torres, September, review 1992 The New York Times, "The Earth Ambulance 1982 - 1992," Roberta Smith, August 28 1989 Le Grif (Paris), "Survive & Continue," Fran&CCSedil;oise Collin, Winter Women Artists News, Cynthia Navaretta, Spring (Inquiry:The Trial of the Sands of Time) Art and Artists, Virginia Maksymowicz, March, article Art in America, "Ecology Art Confounds Jury," Walter Robinson, #74 Feb. San Francisco Chronicle, Kenneth Baker, Feb.17, article (re:Inquiry...) Village Voice, Robert Atkins, February 14, review (re:Inquiry...) Ms. Magazine, "Ecofeminism 101," Lindsay Van Gelder, Jan/Feb, article 1985 W's International Forum, "Art & Healing," Gloria Orenstein, Vol.8 - #5 1983 Vogue, "People Are Talking About..." Lorraine Davis, July, blurb 1982 Ms. Magazine, Martha Nelson, September (re: Soviet action) Quotidiano Donna (Rome), Lucia Chiavola, April, article 1981 Village Voice, Richard Goldstein, July 12, blurb Schachaf (Israel), July, review Artbeat, "From Oil to Stone: The Making of a Political Artist," Suzaan Boettger, February Oakland Tribune, Charles Shere, February, review 1980 Arts Magazine, Noel Frackman, November, review San Francisco Bay Guardian, Robert Atkins, February 21, art column 1979 Arts, Barbara Cavalier, April, review Village Voice, "Nature Takes Its Course," April Kingsley, April 1, review The New York Times, "Formations Breaking," Grace Glueck 3/16 review Art in America, Knute Stile, #67 - March, review 1978 Artforum, Hal Fischer, #17 - December, review Artweek, Mary Stofflet - Santiago, October, review San Francisco Chronicle, Alfred Frankenstein, October 14, review 1976 Womenart Magazine, "Paintings That Change In Time," Lawrence Alloway, Summer Cambridge Chronicle, "Aylon's Paintings Flow Before Your Very Eyes," Ann Phillips March 25, review Artweek, "Paintings in Process," Joanne Dickson, January 17 San Francisco Chronicle, Alfred Frankenstein, January 9, review Catalogue for M.I.T., Marge Supovitz, catalogue essay 1975 Art in America, Peter Schjeldahl, November, rev.Paintings That Change Art International, Carter Ratcliff, November, review Arts, Noel Frackman, #50 - November, review Arts, Allen Ellenzweig, #50 - November, review San Francisco Chronicle, "NY," Alfred Frankenstein, September 28 Artweek, "Six Painters; Six Attitudes," RF Stepan, September 6 Oakland Tribune, Charles Shere, August 10, review San Francisco Chronicle, Thomas Albright, July 24, review Betty Parsons/Susan Caldwell Catalogue, Lawrence Alloway 1973 Artforum, "Women Choose Women," April Kingsley, #11 - March 1972 Art International, Carter Ratcliff, #16 - June, review Art News, Jeanne Siegel, May, review 1971 Arts, "Materiality and Painterliness," Gregoire Muller, Sept./October The New York Times, James Mellow, June 20, review (re: Lyrical Abstraction at Whitney) 1970 Art News, Lawrence Campbell, December, review (re: Max Hutchinson Gallery show) Arts Magazine, "Survey of Recent American Painting," Willis Domingo December Art International, Carter Ratcliff, December, review Art International, Carter Ratcliff, September, review The New York Times, "Highlights of the Downtown Scene," Grace Glueck, April 11 Art in America, "Young Lyrical Painters," Larry Aldrich, #58 - April 1966 Art News, "Ruach," Lawrence Campbell, #65 - Dec. (feature, mural at Kennedy airport) EDUCATION 1979 - 81 MA, Antioch College West, Women's Studies/Performance Art, performance as thesis "Sand Carrying" 1974 MFA, State University of San Francisco - equivalent credentials granted 1960 - 65 New School for Social Research, NY Art Students' League, NY 1953-1960 BA, Cum Laude, Brooklyn College, Art (Studied with Ad Reinhardt) COMMISSIONS 1978 SF Airport, San Francisco, CA: (Purchase Award, SF Art Commission) Painting That Changes, 8'x4' 1968 New York University Medical Center, Lobby, NYC: 2 walls - 37' and auxilliary units 1966 Chapel Library, John F. Kennedy Airport, NY: 14'x16' and auxilliary units PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Baker and Betts, Houston,TX: Painting, 1976 Barbara Dobkin, The Highlighted Bible, located at Ma'yan, NY Flasch Artists Book Collection of the School of the Art Inst. of Chicago: 3 Scrap Books Harris Bank, Chicago: Painting, 1975 Jewish Museum, NYC: permanent acquisition, The Liberation of G-d installation Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA: Painting That Changes in Time, 1974 Museum of Modern Art, NYC: 3 Scrap Books and poster/artifact, Political Art Documentation "Rescued" Earth, 1982 New Museum of Contemporary Art, Haifa, Israel: Painting, 1971 Oakland Museum, CA: Painting, 1974 Richmond Art Museum: 2 Paintings, 1972 and 2 Breakings, 1979 (via Sidney Lewis) SF Museum of Modern Art: acquisition of a 1979 Breaking Skidmore, Owens and Merrill, Chicago: Painting, 1975 Westinghouse Corporation: Painting, 1972 Whitney Museum, NYC: Painting, 1971 PRIVATE COLLECTIONS Svetlana Alpers (UC Berkeley, Art History Department), CA: 1974 comparison piece Dottie Attie (artist), NY: 1973 work Bill and Ellen Berman (collectors), NY: Sand Script (painting), 1972 Flora Biddle, NY and Connecticut: 2 Paintings that Change, 1973 Bronfman family, NY/Montreal (Ruth Shuman Branching + Margot Lande, silver ptg. Susan Chevlowe (curator, Jewish Museum): Earth Ambulance drawing Marcia Cohen-Speigel (collector): The Book That Will Not Close, 1999 and My Clean Days 2001 silkscreen Jane deLynn (writer): The Book That Will Not Close; painting,1977; drawings,1997 -99 Barbara Dobkin (collector & founder of Ma'yan):"The Five Books of Moses, Highlighted" Jonathan Ferziger (Jerusalem Bloomberg News): a painting that changes in time, 1975 Enid Haupt (collector), Philadelphia: silver long painting, 1970 Mui Ho (UC Berkeley, Department of Architecture), CA: painting, 1973 Michael Irving (collector), Rowayton, CT:Suspension, 1974 Max/Joyce Kozloff, (critic /artist), NY: a painting that changes in time, 1975 Leveritt Miller (collector), Palm Springs: painting, 1970 Ursula Myers (Grapestake Gallery), S. F.: painting that changes in time, 1975 Jim Newman (collector), San Francisco, CA: a painting that changes in time, 1974 Jerry Ordover, Esq., NY: gold painting, 1972 Estate of Betty Parsons, NY: a painting that changes in time, 1973 Howardina Pindell (artist), NY: 1974 work Richard Price (author) and Judy Hudson (artist): a painting that changes in time, 1974 Lea Rabin (widow of Prime Minister Rabin), Israel: Deuteronomy Highlighted Carter Ratcliff, (art writer), NY:1972 work Steve Reich (composer and Beryl Korot, video maker): painting,1973 Charles Shere (composer and music critic): painting on paper, 1996 Ann Sheridan (collector), NY: silver painting, 1972 Louis Solomon, Esq., NY: Pouring, 1977 & Homage to Agnes Martin; silver p1972 Nancy Spero (artist), NY: 1973 work Marc and Livia Straus (collectors), Chappaqua, NY: Four Times (24'),1974 and Breaking,1979 Michelle Stuart (artist), NY 1974 work Nina Castelli Sundell (writer and collector): Leviticus and drawing of sac, 1998 Ann Sutherland-Harris (Art Historian), Pittsburgh: 1550-1950 silver painting Maurice Templesman (collector & companion of the late Ms. Onasis), NY: Pouring,1977; silver 1970 Lisa Tillinghast (designer of Dwan Gallery), NY: Silver Painting, 1972; metal, 1972 Rabbi Burton Visotzky (founder - Genesis series Channel 13/ Bill Moyers): Genesis H. Dr.Joe Youngerman and Dr. Ronnie Scharfman (SUNY Purchase), NY: Breaking TEACHING 1989 Instructor of Interdisciplinary, Women's Center for Learning, NY 1977 Instructor in Painting, Lone Mountain College, San Francisco, CA Instructor in Painting, California College of Arts and Crafts 1973-1976 Lecturer, Department of Art, San Francisco State University 1971-1972 Instructor in Painting, Hunter College, NY 1970-1971 Instructor in Painting, Brooklyn Museum Art School VISITING ARTIST 2002 Temple University, March 4 (class of Laura Levitt) 2002 Marywood University, PA, April 10 (Class of Linda Partridge) 2001 Performance at opening of My Notebooks, Brandeis University Women's Studies Research Center, Oct. 16 2001 Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, co-sponsored by Women's Studies Scholars Program, February 15 2000 Fordham University, NY (class of Livia Straus) Temple University (Honors class of Ruth Ost) Rutgers University, NJ (class of Alicia Ostriker), May 2 Barnard College, NY (class of Irena Klepficz), April 6 1998 Sara Lawrence College, "Word and Image," conf. of Jewish Women Scholars, October 18 Mills College (class of Elinor Gadon) Temple University, Women's Studies, December 8 1997 Armand Hammer Museum, UCLA - artist talk with artist Ken Apteker 1996 Jewish Museum, San Francisco - talk to SF Collectors Club, Dec. 6 Barnard College, NY University of Memphis Jewish Theological Seminary, Jewish W's Studies (class Vivian Mann) 1995 University Art Museum, Berkeley, CA , August 6 (Larry Rinder, curator) Pacific Film Archives/ Berkeley Museum 6 min.video with Meredith Monk 1994 Providence College, Women's Studies 1993 William and Mary College, VA (class of Alan Wallach) 1992 & 91 Sweet Briar College, VA 1989 State University of Iowa, Ames University of Iowa, Iowa City (class of Hans Breder) Moore College of Art, Philadelphia (class of Janet Kaplan) 1988 Drew University, NJ - Different Readings, Women's Studies Conference Art Institute of San Francisco, CA (class of Moira Roth/ Susan Griffin) California College of Arts and Crafts (class of Suzanne Lacy) 1987 Asia Society, NY 1986 International Center of Photography, NYC 1985 Banff Center, Alberta, Canada - Art for Social Change Nagasaki Institute for Language and Cultures, Japan Hiroshima Women's College, Hiroshima, Japan Tsuda College, Tokyo, Japan Seika College, Kyoto, Japan SUNY New Paltz, NY -- Women and World Peace Conference 1984 Brooklyn College, NY - Women's Studies Conference 1983 City College, NY (class of April Kingsley) 1981 Wizo College, Haifa, Israel DeYoung Museum (5 artist series) 1980 University of California at San Diego (class of Moira Roth) California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland (class of Suzanne Lacy) School of Visual Arts, NYC (class of May Stevens) Hayward State University, CA (class of Ray Saunders) 1979 SUNY Stonybrook (class of Lawrence Alloway) Columbia University, NY 1977 Brown University, RI Rhode Island School of Design, Providence 1976 University Art Museum, Berkeley, CA - "Artist as Teacher" series University of California at Berkeley, Department of Art Education 1975 Virginia Commonwealth University Brown University, RI (class of Marvin Brown) Mass. Institute of Technology (in conjunction with solo exhibition) 1974 Art Institute of San Francisco (class of Joyce Kozloff) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CULTURE - ANNUAL AWARD RECIPIENT June 3, 2002 at the Plaza Hotel, NY (introduction by Jeanne-Claude & Christo) Projected: Life Briefs: Essays by Prominent Jewish Women, ed. by Rebecca Goldstein Interview / bookPerformance ArtistsTalking in the Eighties, Linda Montano p.337 - 343 WBAI Radio talk show with Andres Serrano, re: Faith exhibit at Aldrich Museum Tikkun Magazine, Phyllis Chesler, p. 79, Vol. 13, May/June, 1998 Book,The Journey Home: Jewish Women and the American Century , Joyce Antler Catalogue, Too Jewish? Challenging Traditional Identities, Norman Kleeblat Cover for New Music composers' CD - Beth Anderson Book, The Power of Feminist Art, by Mary Garrard and Norma Braude Book, The Pink Glass Swan, Feminist Essays on Art, by Lucy Lippard Book, Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, by Suzanne Lacy Panel, "Nagasaki Day," Creative Time, Art in the Anchorage, August 9, 1992 Panel, "Ecofeminist Art/Eco-Logical Art:, Artists Talk on Art," November 22, 1992 Book, The Rivers of Courage: Women's Resistance through the Ages, Pam MacAllister Panel, "Feminist Artists' Juxtapositions," 4th International Congress on Women, Hunter College,1990 Book, The Once and Future Goddess; A Symbol for Our Time, by Elinor Gadin,1989 Panel, "Ideas Into Practice," Women's Caucus for Art, San Francisco, 1989 Panel, "Art and the Earth: the New Landscape Artist," WCA, Boston,1987 Book Interview by Moira Roth, Connecting Conversations, 1987 Adrienne Rich invitation Arab/Jewish Stone Carrying, New Jewish Agenda, Santa Cruz,1987 Heresies Magazine, "On Common Ground," Helene Aylon, #23 L'Universite Des Femmes, Brussels, Fanny Filosof, Summer, 1986 Book, Art in the Collection of the Oakland Museum, 1985 Included in A Decade of Art from San Francisco, Thomas Albright, 1985 Susan Griffin: forward, Reclaim the Earth, by Leonie Caldecott Panel, "Innovative Teaching," Women's Caucus for Art, San Francisco, CA, 1981 Panel, " Perspectives on Teaching," CAA, New Orleans, 1980 Artforum, Moira Roth, November 1980 (among 8 artists) Interviewed by Gloria Frym in Second Stories, Chronicle Books,1980 One of 50 women artists selected to be documented for the National Archives Interview of Betty Parsons - Cover story for Womanart Magazine, Fall, 1979 San Francisco Chronicle, "This World," Alfred Frankenstein, p. 27, June 11, 1979 in Lecture, "Iconography & Sensibility: Contemporary Women's Art," CAA,1978 "Women Artists of the 70's," Lawrence Alloway, Metropolitan Mus. 3/21, 1976 Cover for literary magazine, PEQUOD, California Small Press Publication, 1975 FOR RECOMMENDATIONS Robert Berlind, writer for Art in America; Flora Biddle, Whitney Museum; Christos, artists; Feona Donovan, Board of Trustees, Whitney Museum; Jessica Hough, curator, Aldrich Museum; Chrissy Isles, curator, Whitney Museum; Donald Kuspit, critic; Rick Moody, writer; Cullen Murphy, ed. at Atlantic Monthly ; Gary Sangster, director, The Contemporary/Baltimore; Nancy Spero, artist; Marc & Livia Straus, collectors; Nina Castelli Sundell; Ann S.Harris, art historian Jessica Dawson, Washington Post , Gideon Efrat, Art Historian, Jerusalem; Norman Kleeblat, curator Jewish Museum NY Current Exhibitions/Awards: National Foundation for Jewish Culture Annual award for 2002 Introduced by Christo and Jeanne Claude June 3rd Plaza Hotel, NYC "The Last Supper / Names and The Last Supper / No Names" Opening Nov. 3rd 2002 San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo Branch California For Info: John Hadsel - (510) 843 5506 Aylon will be the keynote speaker at the Presbyterian Conference @ The Seminary T"he Partition is in Place" but The Service Can't Begin Opening Dec. 5th 2002 Phil Museum of Jewish Art 615 N. Broad St. Phil For Info: 215 267 6747 Gallery affiliations to distributors of work: Seeking gallery affiliation. Other professional information: The video 'the Breakings" which was produced at Harvestworks (out of old footage from 1979) was shown in the "American Century" show at the Whitney Museum and was introduced by Chrissie Isles, video curator of the Whitney Museum. REVIEWS: "The Breakings" Thomas Albright - Paintings with No "Dominant" School - San Francisco Chronicle - 7/ 24/75 The most interesting of them, to my taste, is Helene Aylon, who, like many current artists, is into Process, but without abandoning the traditional art "object." Aylon makes big objects of paper under plexiglass: behind the paper are globules and rivulets of oil which stain and bleed through it so that the forms it creates undergo a slow, but continual change. These are by no means entirely accidental works--each develops from a spare formal structure--a line, a shaggy spot in one of the corners--which sometimes recalls the airy calligraphy of Motherwell, sometimes the raw, organic grandeur of Clyfford Still. As the forms expand, grow and metamorphosize in response to the grain of the paper, to air bubbles and other physical forces, they crackle, form rivulets, pockets and other shapes that suggest the face of the earth as it is altered by geological activity. The entire performance beautifully combines strength with subtlety. Catalogue for Susan Caldwell / Betty Parsons Galleries - Paintings that Change by Lawrence Alloway The dates given to paintings usually signify their termination, but this is not the case with Helene Aylon's new work. The date on one of these paintings is like a birth-date, a starting point. She initiates a process, one that continues long after she is in physical contact with the work. The term process is not new to art of course; one familiar use of the term is in reference to a gestural artist like Jackson Pollock whose open-textured paintings record a route of the creative process in making each work. However when Pollock concluded the picture remained as he left it; the furor was arrested at a definite point. His technique was an extension of the aesthetic of drawing on the scale of major painting. Aylon on the contrary uses process as an active factor in the formation of the works themselves. It is a passage of continuous change within the work itself. The rate of change is gradual; my experience is to have seen that one has changed, but not to have seen it occur. The slowness of the paintings change rather than the fact of their change is the crucial factor. They engage us in contemplation not analysis, expectation not description. Chrissie Iles - Whitney Museum of American Art (introduced Breakings at American Century Show) Your impressive videotape, which shows the process of the "breaking" series, becomes about the very nature of process and making. It will resonate strongly with the work of Mendieta and Wilke. Jean Valentine - Seven Poems/Poetry Review I saw my soul become flesh breaking open the linseed oil breaking over the paper running down pouring no one to catch it my life breaking open no one to contain it my pelvis thinning out into God Art Beat - Suzaan Boettger - From Oil To Sand: Helane Aylon The Making Of A Political Artist While she first received critical acclaim in New York for her poured-oil investigations of painterly process", she speaks of making art as if bearing children. The imagery of veined patterns of spreading oil, bulbous organic shapes and membrane sacs of 'skin" forming over the oil is rich and fecund. Artweek - Joanne Dickson - Paintings in Process - 1/17/76 Nature is measured by growth and change; Aylon's paintings are a lyrical metaphor for nature. The works are elusive and evocative, Wind, rain, geological upheaval, germinating ponds--all are suggested. Kinesthetic energy choreographs the paintings, lines and creases give a heightened sence of life's energy. Each state may be viewed and appraised independently, as movement is imperceptible. Latent images emerge over the course of several months. The Voice, SF - Knute Stiles - Four Women Artists But with Aylon, process is the whole message, and finally she dared to make a whole picture in which she would really cooperate with nature and with chance, and made this set of paintings which her action on the process was so minimal as to be almost non-existent. I think she is right. The whole picture is luminously beautiful. Art in America - Knute Stiles - Helene Aylon at Grapestake - March-April/79 Aylon, in allowing her work to gestate for long periods of time without interference, is engaged in a patient kind of cooperation with nature. The influence of Ad Reinhardt, her teacher at Brooklyn College, is clearly evident in the quasi-mystical attitudes here, and his interest in Zen seems to have reinforced her earlier experiences in her own Jewish tradition. There are also obvious parallels to the processes of pregnancy and birth, both in the inevitability of the time span involved and the oceanic character of the materials and imagery. When viewed as a single entity, these works have a portentous quality that ends by seeming almost metaphysical, even to a cautious observer. Artweek - Mary Stofflet-Santiago - Grapestake Gallery - 10/14/78 ...there is a large puddle of oil which forms a sac with a skin. When the work is lifted, the sac breaks, leaving remnants of its crusted edge in a curvilinear shape and the recently liberated, fluid oil to spread out from the sac/nucleus. In this sence, the sac approaches the function of an ovisac, or egg-containing capsule, since it is the container from which all subsequent changes occur. The Village Voice - April Kingsley - "When Nature Takes its Course" - 4/2/79 When Pollock swung out on it, (relying on chance) he retained a good deal of control... Helene Aylon removes herself from the work to prove "there is something there by itself, of itself." The artist is a catalyst; the materials react according to their own laws...which she and her audience step back to observe. ...her Breakings are vertical, and look like gargantuan torsos of Mother Earth. The oil having spilled out of a centralized entrapment, leaving tattered remnants of skin in its downward path, these paintings are metaphors for birth. The oil she poured onto these on March 10 is drying, forming a skin over itself and will gush out of the fragile sacs that are momentarily formed when the panels are lifted on April 10. The New York Times - Roberta Smith - 7/30/99 There are interesting cross generational echoes, for example, between the made-by-gravity paintings of Helene Aylon and Byron Kim, executed 30 years apart. Artweek - Andy Brumer - 3/14/81 Aylon's three pieces are products of a performance titled Performance: interim: Performance for which the artist poured a straight line of linseed oil onto large pieces of heavy brown butcher paper laid out on the floor. As months passed, a skinlilke layer formed which when pricked, reformed and dried into scars. The dialogue between containment and release, relinquishment and control... are all given shape in this interesting multidimensional work. The resulting images are highly suggestive of the human form, particularly of the torso and pelvic areas...The images themselves seem capable of giving birth just as they were brought to life through the artist's creative process. Arts Magazine - Allen Ellenzweig - Helene Aylon at Betty Parsons - 11/75 Helene Aylon gives us paintings in flux, evolving at the slow, unobservable pace shared by the coastlines...The temptation to compare Aylon's paintings to earthworks is irresistible, for though she paints in oil, Aylon has devised a process that yields temporal results. ...Chance and a limited control combine to reveal a corpus that is part product, all process, and in tune with our present need to make contact with elemental forces. "The Liberation of G-D" Cullen Murphy on Helene Aylon: One of my most stirring memories of Yaddo is that of a peaceable and spectral presence which could glide across ones field of vision at any time. It might be at a moment of purple dusk, the figure emerging silently from the pines into a clearing, and then entering the pines again. It might be on a bright morning after a fresh snow, the moving figure in dark raiment offering a focus of relief against the glare. The figure is a woman, always clad in a flowing gown, her hair entwined in a woven wrap, her face composed into serenity. This is Helene Aylon. I did not know it at first, but on those expeditions among Yaddo's trails Helene had been collecting pine cones and cattails, oak leaves and wisteria pods and other fallen icons of the natural world, which she was fashioning into a series of translucent panels as part of a work called "Transparencies." The effect was both humbling and joyous. On a sunny afternoon Helene set the tall frames covered in tight muslin against the windows of her studio, the light streaming through the delicate artifacts inside, one type of artifact to a panel. Helene's simple panels transformed an ordinary workspace into a place of the spirit. Helene Aylon's "The G-D Project," an elaborate series of installations, only a small sample of which can be shown here, is in some ways vastly different from "Transparencies" but in one way profoundly of a piece with it: in each case Aylon demonstrates the transforming power of a simple, honest act. In "The G-D Project" it is the act of highlighting-on parchment overlays, in delicate pink-injunctions from the Five Books of Moses that give offense to the ideals of non-violence and of gender equality. "In pain you shall bring forth children." "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife...or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's." The roots of Aylon's biography lie in Orthodox Judaism, and Aylon has struggled to come to terms with her background. The path of angry rejection is, emphatically, not Aylon's way. By highlighting the many offending passages on translucent sheets, she deliberately avoids doing violence to, or even altering, the original text. The gentle squeak of the highlighting--the sound itself--becomes a relentlessly insistent midrash. The pieces of parchment inserted between the pages of text ensure that, as a simple physical matter, each book must remain open--just as each remains "open" for purposes of interpretation, commentary, and criticism. Aylon's "G-D Project' occupies a place between "too respectful" and "not respectful enough." It is an uncomfortable place but also a place with integrity, and a place where many of those who think about Aylon's work also find themselves. Rabbi Burton L. Visotzky, creator of the PBS television series Genesis with Bill Moyers, and co-curator of The Liberation of G-D Helene Aylon has given us pearls of the purest pink...providing the first layer of what shall become a future feminist midrash. She casts a veneer of pink, a lens to (re)view the Sacred Text. She forces our engagement with the text, a physical interaction that leaves our senses imbued with the sounds of Sinai...Writing about classical midrash, the late Shalom Spiegel explained, 'Just as a pearl results from a stimulus in the shell of a mollusk, so also a legend may arise from an irritant in Scripture.' Norman Kleeblat, Curator of Collections, The Jewish Museum, New York, and co-curator of The Liberation of G-d Like other feminist artists who insert themselves either through image (Cindy Sherman) or text (Jenny Holzer) into representations of male authority, Aylon posits feminist concerns onto the ur-text of the Judeo-Christian tradition. [Yet] within the realm of conceptual art, which has to date dealt with the intersection of art with science, knowledge, data or philosophy, The Liberation of G-d is, to my knowledge, the first conceptual piece to deal with the intersection of art and religion." Robert Berlind - Art in America - 10/99 The interplay of performance, documentation and installation in these works calls to mind artists as various as Hanne Darboven, Hannah Wilke and Ann Hamilton. The use of text, interactivity and social activism connects Aylon to Suzanne Lacy, Mierle Ukeles and Adrian Piper. The conflation of activist commitment, deep personal feeling and theological erudition makes her "G-d Project" persuasive and rewarding on all levels--that and her being an artist of extraordinary instincts and perseverance." Leslie Camhi - Village Voice - 4/2/96 Helene Aylon's monumental installation, The Liberation of G-d, reaches a level of spiritual sublimity....It's a poignant and powerful image of someone haunted by a tradition that would exclude her, and of the ephemeral, infinite process of reading the Book of Life. Christopher Knight, L.A. Times - 2/4/97 What sets her work apart from most critique-driven others...is its simultaneous embrace of worldly experience and tradition. In the halls of Hammer's museum, Aylon's extemporaneous midrah both passionate and respectful, made for the show's strongest and most eloquent image. two sacs in route: Cee Scott Brown, Director Art Matters which funded Sony Jumbotron - Berkeley Museum brochure) Challenging to the senses--visually stimulating, thought provoking and often dealing with politically sensitive subject matter. Her work is representative of the risk taking forms of expression that Art Matters has supported over the past decade. Moira Roth - Connecting Conversations (Book) For over two decades, Helene Aylon has been a counter-voice, a clairvoyant yet often rejected voice in both the Bay Area and the New York City art worlds. She has been known as a process painter but has evolved into a ceremonial performance artist. Her most recent pieces directly confront and revere the earth itself and bring together women from warring nations. In the finale of a seven-year itinerary she went to Japan and collected dreams from survivors of the atomic bomb, written on their own pillowcases. Students from Seika College in Kyoto placed miniscule resuscitative ingredients (for example, one seed, one kernel of rice) into two large "sacs" which were then floated down rivers to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where they were filled by other Japanese women with the sands of those shores. Aylon has used the metaphor of the sac since 1978. Bridge of Knots: Lawrence Rinder, former curator of the Berkeley Museum - museum brochure Aylon's pillowcase project has come to symbolize for many the communal, feminist ideals that developed within the anti-nuclear movement. The museum is pleased to welcome this work back to Berkeley, its place of origin, and let it eloquently speak to the tragic legacy of nuclear weapons and to the ongoing threat of their proliferation. Peter Selz - Art in America - Helene Aylon at the University Art Museum Not only was the University of California at Berkeley a center of the anti-war movement in the '60s and '70s, but it was more recently the bailiwick of I. Michael Heyman, who served as chancellor at the university for a decade, leaving in 1990 to become the new secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. It was Heyman who capitulated to right-wing pressure and agreed to bowdlerize the National Air and Space Museum's Enola Gay exhibition, which was to have been a scholarly reassessment of the use of the bomb. Heyman is also reported to have obtained the resignation of the museum's director, Martin Harwitt. It seems proper, somehow, that an art event questioning the morality of the 1945 devastations should take place at Heyman's former campus. My Bridal Chamber: Jessica Dawson - Washington Post - 8/23/01 Aylon's use of art to examine the Jewish faith puts her in league with Jewish video artist Shimon Attie; her feminist spin places her in a sisterhood of great women artists - from Carolee Schneeman...to sculptors Louise Bourgeois and Kiki Smith. ...Perhaps it's her long simmering passions that give this simple installation its steely insistence. Hers is a quietly outspoken artistry confronting what Aylon sees as deep rooted misogyny. Spend just a few minutes in the exhibition and the works dig right in. ...While Aylon's piece is ostensibly about Judaism, gentiles like me get it too. It speaks to any woman who has known oppression at the hands of men - within her family or society at large. But perhaps the ultimate power of Aylon's art dervies not from religion itself but from Aylon's relationship to it. Her work comes from a personal and deeply felt double-bind: Here she speaks out against the very beliefs she still holds dear even as they infuriate her. Dinitia Smith - New York Times - Of Cycles and Scriptures: 7/19/01 The bed sits in the semi-dark in the Ane Loeb Bronfman gallery at the District of Columbia Jewish center, it is illuminated by a spotlight and covered with a white handkerchiefs. Behind it is a Hebrew- English calendar, about 24 feet long and 5 feet high, that chronicles the time from the wedding day of the artist, Helene Aylon, to the date her husband, Mandel Fisch, died, Feb. 15, 1961. The 12 days when her husband was near death and she couldn't have contact with him because she was impure are covered with cloth. Three days before he died, her impurity ended. Only then could she embrace him. "Five Days, Seven days" Ms. Aylon chants in the recorded sound track in the background. Artists statement: The 70's work was about the visceral and orgasmic body and the inevitability of change; The 80's was abut the earth, halting the arms race, uniting women from warring nations; In the 90's my aim was to shine a feminist lens with scholarly inquiry into ancient texts and practices that omit or deny the presence/input of women; In the 00's the G-D work has become more autobiographical regarding my ultra orthodox background. The Artist has been influenced by: Shirin Neshat James Turrell Ann Hamilton Christo Walter de Maria Lorna Simpson Adrian Piper Glen Ligon Xu Bing Other significant influences: Adrienne Rich, writer Dr. Helen Caldicott, activist Susan Griffin, writer Alice Walker, writer Experiences that have influenced the Artist's entire body of work: I drove an "Earth Ambulance" to military S.A.C. sites in the 80's to dramatize concern for the health of the Earth and concern for the danger of the Arms Race. Other works: F Medium Artist works in: Installation Video Sound Text Painting The venues where the Artist's works have been performed are: Galleries Museums Alternative Space Media Arts Center Universities Copyright 2000 Harvestworks