Jo Anna Isaak

Teaching and Other Interests
Modern & Contemporary Art
Feminism
Russian Art
Art and Ecology: Trash/ Garbage/ Re-cycling & Redemption
Film&
Laughter
Off -Campus Program: New York City, Fall 1999

	Participating Artists

Laughter Ten Years After

LOOKINGFORWARD LOOKINGBLACK

Dissertation

"Avant-garde Art and the Avant-garde Texts of James Joyce, Gertrude Stein and the English Vorticists." Ph.D. June 1982, University of Toronto. Advisors: Prof. E. Domville, Dept. of English, University of Toronto Prof. R. Welsh, Art History, University of Toronto. External Advisor: Prof. Hugh Kenner, The Johns Hopkins University. 

Publications

Books: 

H2O, Hobart and William Smith Colleges Press, 2002.	Looking Forward, Looking Black, Hobart and William Smith Colleges Press, 1999	Feminism and Contemporary Art: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Laughter, London and New York: Routledge, 1996.
Nancy Spero, with Jon Bird and Sylvère Lotringer, London: Phaidon, 1996.	Laughter Ten Years After, editor, with essays by Marcia Tucker and Jeanne Silverthorne, Geneva: Hobart and William Smith Colleges Press, 1995.	Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics & Idioma: A Journal of Feminist Post-Totalitarian Criticism, editorial collective, 1992, No. 26. bilingual Russian/English issue.
The Ruin of Representation in Modernist Art and Texts, Ann Arbor and London: UMI Research Press, 1986. Reprinted 1988.

Television: 

Interview on the Guerrilla Girls for the program "Arts and Minds" on Bravo Television. Aired in Canada February 20 and 21 and in the U.S. April 17 and 18, 1999.
Commentary on the artist Nancy Spero for the program "Art Today," Channel 13, February 7, 1991.

Articles, Interviews, Reviews, Catalogue Essays, Dictionary Entries:

"In Praise of Primary Narcissism: The Last Laughs of Jo Spence and Hannah Wilke," InterFaces: Visualizing and Performing Women's Lives, eds. Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2003.
"Working in a Sweatshop Full of Muses: Women Artists at the New Millennium" Deste Foundation, Center for Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece, 2002.
"Renee Cox: American Family," Robert Miller Gallery, New York City, 2001.
"Mapping the Imaginery," (1987) reprinted in Feminism-Art-Theory: An Anthology 1968-2000, edited by Hilary Robinson, Blackwell Press, 2001, 480-486.
"The Revolutionary Power of Women's Laughter" (1993) and "Laughter Ten Years After" (1995) reprinted in Art and Feminism, ed. Helen Reckitt, London: Phaidon Press, 2001.
"Trash: Public Art by the Garbage Girls," in Gendering Landscape Art Manchester University Press, 2000, 173-185.
"Leon Golub: Rebel With A Cause," CIRCA Vol. 93 Autumn 2000, 35-37.
"The Emperors Clothes," interview with Martina Pachmanova, Atelier Vol. 12, 2000, 2.
"La imaginaction dialogica," Los manifiestos del arte Posmoderno, Ediciones Akal, Madrid, Spain 1999, 317-322.
"First Lessons," Barbara Haum, New York, 1999.
"Visual Pleasure in the Narrative Painting," Zoya Frolova:Tempus Sans, Mimi Ferzt Gallery, New York, 1999.
"Dotty Attie," "Nancy Davidson", "Jeanne Silverthorne," "Elaine Reichek and "Hannah Wilke," in the St James Guide to Contemporary Women Artists, St. James Press, Farmington Hills, Michigan, 1999.
"Carnivaleyes: The Work of Nancy Davidson" Nova Sin Gallery, Prague, 1998.
"Maryland Art Place: Critics' Residency Program," Editorial Supplement to The Washington Review, Vol. 97, April/May 1998.
"Women, Women, Women: Artists, Objects, Icons," Emrys Journal Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, South Carolina, Vol. 87, Spring 1998, 40-57.
"Dorothy Cross," "Kiki Kogelnik," "Irina Nakhova, " and "Jeanne Silverthorne" in Sculpture-Figure-Woman, Austrian Regional Gallery, Linz, Austria, 1998.
"Hannah Wilke" in the Dictionary of Women Artists, Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, London, 1997, Vol. 2, pp. 1459-61.
Kiki Kogelnik: Hangings, M.A.K. Galerie, Vienna, Austria, 1996.
Elaine Reichek: Guests of the Nation, co-authored with Dan O'Connell. Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery at The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, 1996.
"On Fragmentation, Loss, and the Studio's Ruin: A Conversation Between Jeanne Silverthorne and Jo Anna Isaak," in Jeanne Silverthorne, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 1996.
"Work in Progress: Dorothy Cross and Jo Anna Isaak," Circa Art Magazine, Spring 1996, No. 75, 35-42.
"Foreword," Layers Contemporary Collage from St.Petersburg, ed. Alla Efimova, Fine Arts Gallery, University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1995.
"Notes Towards a Supreme Fiction" in Leon Golub/Nancy Spero: Notes in Time, ed. Maurice Berger, Fine Arts Gallery, University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1995.
"Love Calls us to the Things of this World," in Kiki Smith, Whitechapel Gallery, London, England, 1995.
"The Dialogical Imagination," in Dialogue with the Other, ed. Lene Burkard Kuntshallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense, Denmark, 1994, 10-16.
Reprinted in Los Manifesto del Arte Posmoderno: 1980-1995 Akal, Spain, 2000.
"The Future of a Disillusion: Sex, Truth, and Photography in the Former Soviet Union," Art Journal, Summer 1994, 45-52.
"What's to be Done? Revolution in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Border/Lines, 1993, No. 28, 38-45.
"Writing and Righting: The Language of Gender" Surviving Together: A Quarterly on Grassroots Cooperation in Eurasia, Winter 1993, Vol. 11,
Issue 4, 31-34.
"The Comfy Chair," Meaning: Contemporary Art Issues, May 1993,
No. 13, 14-19.
"Matisse: A Symposium" Art in America, May 1993, 84.
"Who's 'We,' White Man?" Parkett, December 1992, No. 34, 142-151.
"Matroyoshka Becomes Lolita," ICI Newsletter, Fall 1992, Vol. 7, No. 2,1-3.
"Sergei Bugaev at the Queens Museum," Art in America, November
1992, Vol. 80, No. 11, 132-3.
"Friends of Jeff Koons Fan Club," Artforum, February 1992, Vol. xxx, No. 6, 86.
"Who Wears the Pants in the House of Being? Interview with Leon Golub," Arts Magazine, January 1992, Vol. 66 No. 5, 54-59.
"What's Love Got to do, Got to do with it? Woman as the Glitch in the Post-Modernist Record," American Imago: Psychoanalytic Journal for Culture, Science and the Arts, Fall, 1991, Vol. 48, No. 3, 351-380.
Susan Unterberg: Fathers and Sons, Laurence Miller Contemporary Photographs, New York City, September 1990, 5-6.
"Representation and its (Dis)contents," review of Griselda Pollock's Vision and Difference, Art History, September 1989, Vol. 12, No. 3. 362-366.
Mothers of Invention, Houghton House Gallery, Geneva N.Y. and McNeil Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1989.
"The Others of the Other World: Women Artists of the Russian Avant garde," Eau de Cologne, Monika Spruth Galerie, Cologne, 1988, 38-43.
"Nancy Spero: A Work in Comic Courage,"in Nancy Spero: Works Since 1950, ed. Dominique Nahas, Everson Museum, Syracuse, New York, 1987, 25-31.
Reprinted in Parachute, Vol. 51, Summer 1988, 11-15.
"Documenta 8," Parachute, Vol. 49, Winter 1987-88, 28-30.
"The Revolution of a Poetics," Modernism, Challenges and Perspectives, eds. Monique Chefdor, Ricardo Quinones and Albert Wachtel, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago 1986, 159-179.
Reprinted in Twentieth Century Literature Criticism (TCLC), 1997.
"Mapping the Imaginary," PsychCritique: The International Journal of Critical Psychology and Psychoanalysis, I: 3, 1985, 187-203.
Reprinted in The Event Horizon: Essays on Hope, Sexuality, Social Space and Media(tion) in Art, eds. Lorne Falk and Barbara Fischer, The Coach House Press, Toronto, 1987, 137-157.
"Gertrude Stein: The Revolutionary Power of a Woman's Laughter,"
Whimsy III: Contemporary Humor, April, 1985.
Reprinted in Gertrude Stein Advanced: An Anthology of Criticism, ed. Richard Kostelanetz, McFarland and Company, Jefferson, North Carolina, 1990, 24-50.
"Seduction Without Desire," Eau de Cologne, Monika Spruth Galerie, 1985, 10-14. Reprinted in Vanguard, Summer 1987, 60-62.
"Woman: The Ruin of Representation," Afterimage, Vol. 12 No. 9,
April 1985, 6-8.
"Signs of Subversion," Banff Letters, Fall 1984, 2-6.
"Avant-garde Art in Russia: 1900-1930," Artforum, Jan.1982, 88-89.
"Moscow-Paris 1900-1930," Art Monthly, July/Aug.1981, No.48, 9-11.
"Joyce's Ulysses and the Cubist Esthetic," MOSAIC: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, Vol. XIV, No. 1, Winter 1981, 61-90.
"Our Mother Tongue--Mary Kelly: The Post-Partum Document," Vanguard, Vol. XI, No. 3, April 1982, 14-17.
Reprinted in Post-Partum Document by Mary Kelly, Routledge and Keegan Paul, London, 1983, 202-206.
Review of Fables of Aggression: Wyndham Lewis, the Modernist as Fascist by Frederic Jameson, Dalhousie Review, Vol. 60, No. 4, Winter 1980-81, 762-765.
Review of Ecrits/Writings 1942-1958, by Paul Emile Borduas, Dalhousie Review, Vol. 59, No.3, 1979-1980, 566-570.
Reprinted in RACAR: Revue d'Art canadienne/Canadian Art Review, VI 2, 1979-80, 134-136.
"The Education of Eve (Milton)," Atlantis: A Women's Studies Journal,
1977, Vol. 2, No. 2, Part V, 114-12

Conferences and Lectures

Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, October 15, 2002
Cuban Cultural Seminar, University of Havana, Cuba, March 9-17, 2002.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, March 2, 2002
Faces of Laughter-Female Strategies in Art, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, April 8, 2001
Tufts University Gallery, Aidekman Arts Center, Medford, Massachusetts, October 20, 2000.
Georgia State University School of Art and Design, Atlanta, Georgia, October 5, 2000.
Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York, September 21, 2000.
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin , July 4, 2000.
Internationale Sommerakademie Für Bildende Kunst, Salzburg, Austria, lecture series July 31, 2000.
Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, December 17, 1999.
Weatherspoon Art gallery, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, North Carolina, August 29 ,1999
College Art Association, Los Angeles, February 13, 1999.
Vice-Versa-Vice Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, Holland, November 7, 1998
Feminist Art and Art History Conference, Barnard College, New York, October 17,1998.
Public Forum on the opening of the "Critic's Choice" exhibition Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, Maryland, April 18, 1998.
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville South Carolina, March 10, 1998
Critics' Residency Program, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, Maryland, November 1997. Workshop for local artists and writers November 19 to 23, 1997
Wayne State University, January 16, 1998.
Ideas in Progress Seminar, Middlesex University, London, England, October 28, 1997.
The University of Reading, Reading, England, October 39, 1997.
Virtue and Vulgarity: A Feminist Conference on Art, Science and the Body, The University of Reading, Reading, England, September 18-21, 1997.
Internationale Sommerakademie Für Bildende Kunst, Salzburg, Austria, lecture series August 18-27, 1997.
CapcMusée, Bordeaux, France, June 18, 1997.
Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, June 11, 1997.
Purchase College, State University of New York, March 18, 1997.
Forbidden Bodies: Addressing the Taboo in Contemporary Art and Culture International Center of Photography, New York City, March 3, 1997.
College Art Association, New York City, February 13, 1997.
Exquisite/Corpse Artsite, Burlington, Vermont, November 6, 1996.
Art Department, The University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, November 5, 1996.
Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 26, 1996.
Beaver College Art Gallery, Spruance Art Center, Glenside, Pennsylvania, September17, 1996.
"Out of Order: Culture and the Three Worlds Theory," the 1996 Hawkins Ferry Symposium, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, April 13, 1996.
Collage and Post-Communist Madness, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Catonsville, Maryland, November 4, 1995.
Ezra and Cecile Zikha Gallery. Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, November 1, 1995.
Internationale Sommerakademie Für Bildende Kunst, Salzburg, Austria, August, 1995.
Dialogue with the Other: A Seminar on Art, Literature, and Philosophy
Kunsthallen Brandts Klaedefrabrik, Odense, Denmark, June 18, 1994.
Photo/foto Symposium on Contemporary Russian Photography,
Rutgers University, April 2-3, 1993.
Artists Talk on Art, Soho 21, April 2, 1992.
Feminism, Art, and Culture in the Soviet (dis)Union,
Feminist Art History Conference Barnard College, New York, October 27, 1990
Artexte, Montréal, Québec, May 18,1990
Art Department, SUNY, Stony Brook, April 25, 1990.
Juxtapositions: the Art of Nancy Spero, Smith College, March 31, 1990.
Theatre of the Female Body, Trinity College, October 14-15, 1989.
The Critical Practice of Art, artists workshop with Mary Kelly, Victor Burgin and Anne Ramsden, Centre for the Arts, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia Summer Institute, June 12-June 30, 1989.
Feminist Scholar Lecture Series with Griselda Pollock and Mary Kelly,
Vancouver Art Gallery, June 27, 1989.
A Conversation with Nancy Spero, Margaret Harrrison and Jo Anna Isaak, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, June 14, 1989.
Eleventh International James Joyce Symposium, Venice, June 16-21, 1988.
Conditions of Place, Western Canada Arts Association, Banff Centre for the Arts, April 21-23, 1988.
Representing Hysteria, Trinity College, April 15, 1988.
Interpretations Colloquium, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania April 8, 1988.
Sophie Kerr Lecture Series, Washington College, Chestertown, Maryland February 23, 1988.
Circle Gallery, New York City, January 1987.
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, December 18, 1987.
L'Art Qui Parle/Art Talks 1986, Powerhouse, Montréal, Québec, Jan 30,1986.
YYZ: Lecture Series, Toronto, Ontario, October 19, 1986.
Ontario College of Art, Toronto, Ontario, October 17,1986.
Rivoli, Queen St. Toronto, Ontario, October,1986.
Tenth International James Joyce Symposium, Copenhagen, June 16-21, 1986.
Social Theory, Politics and the Arts Conference,
New School for Social Research and Adelphi University, October 25-27, 1985.
Lacan's Legacy: Lessons of the Transference, An International Conference on Psychoanalysis, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, June 14-16, 1985.
Permissitive et politique en art, Powerhouse Gallery, Montréal, April 1985.
Sexuality and Representation Hobart and William Smith Colleges, December 11-13, 1984. Speakers: Marie Yates, Ray Barrie, Mary Kelly.
Women and Language, with Mary Kelly, A.I.R. Gallery, New York City, November 1984, and April 1986.
National Linguistics Conference on Humor,
Arizona State University, Phoenix, Arizona, March 28-April 1, 1984.
Sexuality and the Axis of Production, The Banff Centre, June 1984.
The Cultural Construction of Gender,
A.I.R. Gallery, 63 Crosby Street, New York City, December 6, 1983.
Speakers: Gayatri Spivak, Joan Copjec, Peter Schwenger. Moderator: Jo Anna Isaak.
Learned Societies Conference,
The University of British Columbia, Canada, May 28-June 8, 1983.
American Comparative Literature Association,
University of California, Santa Barbara, March 24-26, 1983.
8th Annual Conference on Literature and Film,
Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, January 27-29, 1983.
Modern Language Association, Los Angeles, December 27-30, 1982.
European Studies Conference, Omaha, NB, October 14-16,1982.
Comparative Literature Conference on Modernism,
Claremont College, California, April 1-4, 1982.
College Art Association, New York City, February 25-27, 1982.
Mid-Hudson Modern Language Association, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.,
December 1, 1981.
European Studies Conference, Omaha, Nebraska, October 8-10, 1981.
Films By and About Women,
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia, February 2, 1979.
Research on Women: A Women's Studies Conference,
Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, November 11-14, 1976.

Curatorial Activity

H2O
H2O is an art exhibition focusing on water and the human body -- water contained in our bodies and water that contains our bodies, actual ponds and rivers, as well as bodies of water that populate our dreams, reveries and imaginations. Water is the natural element of artistic contemplation and in this exhibition artists, working in various media, explore our deeply ambivalent attitudes toward the element that is both the major component of oscillating between the experience of pleasure and fear, impart sensations of weightlessness and and timelessness -- the body buoyed by water or engaged in ritual cleansing, recreation, physical or spiritual healing.
Artists in the exhibition: :aura Aguilar, Janine Antoni, Janet Biggs, Carol Cole, Jenny Gage, Amy Jenkins, Mark Jones, Nadav Kander, Samm Kunce, sally Mann, Eileen Neff, Nurit Newman, Christy Rupp, Bonnie Rychlak, Jeanne Silverthorne, Kiki Smith, Nancy Spero, May Stevens, Susan Unterberg, Mia Westerland Roosen,
Music: Annea Lockwood.
Venues:

Looking Forward, Looking Black.
This exhibition examines race, representation and the contested cultural constructions of identity. The black body has been everywhere in evidence in painting, film, photography ­- even cookie jars and lawn ornaments -- and at the same time been rendered invisible. The artists in this exhibition reflect upon the vicissitudes of the representation of the black body over the century. Artists include: Emma Amos, Anonymous, Michael Ray Charles, Robert Colescott, Renée Cox, Lesley Dill, Leon Golub, Lyle Ashton Harris, Glenn Ligon, Beverly McIver, Alison Saar, Bill Traylor, Kara Walker, Maria Howard Weeden, Carrie Mae Weems, and Peter Williams.
The catalogue essays by Emma Amos, Jo Anna Isaak, Marilyn Jiménez, Heather Sealy Lineberry, Rob Perrée, Ingrid Schaffner, Christina Sharpe and Peter Williams. The catalogue will be published by Hobart and William Smith College Press and distributed by (D.A.P) Distributed Art Publishers, Inc.
The exhibition has been on tour in the U.S. for two years. It will open at the YMI Cultural Center, Asheville, North Carolina, December 13, 2002 - February 28, 2003.
Laughter Ten Years After
Artists: Dotty Attie, Marie Baronnet, Dorothy Cross, Nancy Davidson, Nancy Dwyer, Ilona Granet, Kathy Grove, Guerilla Girls, Jenny Holzer, Mary Kelly, Barbara Kruger, Irina Nakhova, Lorraine O'Grady, Kathy Prendergast, Elaine Reichek, Cindy Sherman, Jeanne Silverthorne, Nancy Spero, Susan Unterberg, Carrie Mae Weems.
Venues: Ezra and Cecila Zilkha Gallery, Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, Middleton, Connecticut October 31 - December 20, 1995; Houghton House Gallery, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, February 23 - April 16, 1996; Beaver College Art Gallery, Spruance Art Center, Glenside, Pennsylvania, September 16 -October 27, 1996; Exquisite/Corpse Artsite, Burlington, Vermont, November 7 -December 24, 1996; Morris an Helen Belkin Gallery, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, June 10 - July 26, 1997; Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, January 16-March 6, 1998.
Disorderly Conduct
Exhibition organized with Nina Felshin and Wendy Olsoff.
Artists: Stavit Allweis, Eleanor Antin, Maureen Connor, Margaret Curtis, Mary DelMonico, Christa Erickson, Ilona Granet, Annetta Kapon, Rachel Lachowicz, Bruce Nauman, Ann O'Sullivan, Erika Rothenberg, Ken Schles, Dara Silverman, Jeanne Silverthorne, Lorna Simpson. Houghton House Gallery, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, April 8 - May 2, 1994.
Susan Unterberg: Sons and Mother
Houghton House Gallery, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, April 8 - May 2, 1994.
Jeanne Silverthorne: Sculptural Works
Houghton House Gallery, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, April 27- May 21, 1990.
Mothers of Invention
Artists: Niki Berg, Janice Gurney, Elizabeth MacKenzie, Mary Scott, May Stevens, Susan Unterberg. Catalogue essay by Jo Anna Isaak.
Venues: Houghton House Gallery, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, February 3 - March 3, 1989; McNeil Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, April 14 - June 5, 1989.
Works on Paper
Artists: Nicole Jolicoeur and Nancy Spero, January 17 - February 4, 1986, Houghton House Gallery, Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
The Revolutionary Power of Women's Laughter
Artists: Mary Kelly, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Mike Glier, Ilona Granet, Nancy Spero. Venues: Max Protech Gallery, New York, NY, January 15 - February 20, 1983, Artculture Resource Center, Toronto, Ontario, February 4 - 28, 1984; Gibson Fine Arts Center, Washington College, March 26 - April 8, 1984.


Awards and Scholarship

1997 New York State Council on the Arts.
1988 Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada
Fellowship for Research in the Soviet Union
1987-1988 J. Paul Getty Fellowship in the History of Art
1987 Scholarship Award, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
1987 Hewlett Mellon Fellowship for Research in the Soviet Union
1981-1982 Canadian Federation of University Women Award
1978-1980 Ontario Graduate Scholarship
1978-1979 Canada Council
1977-1978 Ontario Graduate Scholarship
1976-1977 University of Toronto Graduate Scholarship
1975-1976 Ontario Graduate Scholarship
1974 University of British Columbia Graduate Award