Elementos de identidad
Código de referencia
Nombre y localización del repositorio
Nivel de descripción
Título
Fecha(s)
- circa 2009-2020 (Creación)
Extensión
1 linear foot (1 postcard-size box and 3 oversize posters); 1.8 GB digital files
Nombre del productor
Historia biográfica
Monica Mayer (b. 1954) is a Mexican-born artist, educator, and activist. Mayer initially received training in visual art at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She is best known for public actions and installation artworks, but the artist also produced collages, drawings, and published books and essays. Mayer’s work exists within a tradition of installation art, performance, and political intervention identified by Mexican theorist Juan Acha as no-objectualismo or non-objectual art. No-objectualismo is associated with international conceptual art movements like Situationism, Happenings in New York and other cities, and the work of Japanese groups like Gutai and Group Ultra Niigata, but arises from socio-political and critical contexts particular to Mexico and Latin America. The movement was best represented by the work of avant-garde performance and conceptual art groups known collectively as Los Grupos and pursued individually by members of Los Grupos and by artists like Mayer. From the 1970s onward, Mayer was also involved in feminist artmaking and advocacy through her participation in groups like Movimiento Feminista Mexicano, the Coalición de Mujeres Feministas, and Collectivo Cine Mujeres. Mobilized in part by the United Nations International Women’s Year, the main conference of which was held in Mexico City in 1975, Mayer began staging art installations with more explicit feminist rhetoric. Mayer continued to explore the role of art in the feminist political project during a two-year program at the Feminist Studio Workshop in Los Angeles’ Women’s Building, an interdisciplinary center for feminist art practices founded by Judy Chicago, Arlene Raven, and Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, during which she made return trips to Mexico in order to lead workshops for women artists. In 1980, Mayer completed a master’s degree in the sociology of art at Goddard College in Vermont. Her thesis on the importance of feminist art as a tool for political organizing drew heavily from her work in Los Angeles. In 1983, Monica Mayer partner with Maris Bustamente, a long-time Mexican conceptual artist and member of the avant-garde performance art group No Grupo, to form Polvo de Gallina Negra (or Black Hen Powder), the first of Los Grupos to include the advancement of women’s issues in it’s stated mission. Polvo de Gallina Negra staged political interventions, media appearances, and conceptual works from 1983 to 1999. Mayer is perhaps best known for a serial installation piece known as El Tendedero (the Clothesline). El Tendedero was first staged at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City in 1978. For El Tendedero, Mayer solicits responses to a series of questions from women in local communities (e.g. “As a woman, have you ever experienced violence or harassment?” or “Do you feel safe as a woman in your city?”), and displays the responses en masse hanging from a clothesline to raise awareness of the frequency of gendered violence and harassment in different cities. The artwork has been reactivated several times since Mayer’s relocation to the United States in 1978, including at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in 2017-8 and, most recently, at locations around Indianapolis in 2020.
Nombre del productor
Historia administrativa
Women4Change Indiana is an inclusive, non-partisan, grassroots organization that promotes the health, safety, and respect of all Hoosiers. The organization is based in Indianapolis and was created in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election.
Área de contenido y estructura
Alcance y contenido
The El Tendedero Indiana collection consists of one post-card sized box of community-generated response ballots to survey questions generated by Mayer. The ballots are separated into five subseries corresponding to five questions and further arranged by language (English and Spanish). The collection also includes one folder with printed ephemera and posters generated in advance of El Tendedero events around Indianapolis and an issue of the Indianapolis Recorder featuring a story about Women4Change legislative efforts. The El Tendedero Indiana collection was received with three oversize posters, a promotional t-shirt, and two red cardboard boxes which were used in the collection of community-generated response ballots; these have been (will be) photographed and deaccessioned. The collection also contains 1.8 GB digital material including digital ephemera, promotional material, and events photographs contributed by Women4Change and undated photographic documentation of past El Tendedero installations contributed by Mayer.
Sistema de arreglo
Arranged by topic and language.
Condiciones de acceso y uso de los elementos
Condiciones de acceso
The El Tendedero Indiana collection was digitized and will be made available through the collection website. Physical collections are retained by the museum and will be made available to researchers at the discretion of the archivist. The photographs from past installations in series three are available upon advance request.
Acceso físico
Acceso técnico
Condiciones
Unpublished manuscripts are protected by copyright. Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder. Please contact the Archivist for more information.
Idiomas del material
- inglés
- español
Escritura(s) de los documentos
Notas sobre las lenguas y escrituras
Instrumentos de descripción
Elementos de adquisición y valoración
Historial de custodia
Analog materials from the El Tendedero Indiana Collection were transferred to Newfields on September 29, 2020. Additional materials were received on November 6, 2020 and November 9, 2020. Born digital collections material was transferred from Mayer on November 11, 2020, and from Women4Change on December 17, 2020.
Origen del ingreso
Gift of Women4Change Indiana
Valoración, selección y eliminación
Acumulaciones
Elementos de material relacionado
Existencia y localización de originales
Existencia y localización de copias
Unidades de descripción relacionadas.
Descripciones relacionadas
Elemento notas
Notas especializadas
- Mención: [Title of item], [date], [Container information], El Tendedero Indiana Collection (M023), Archives, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Indianapolis, IN.
Identificador/es alternativo(os)
Área de control de la descripción
Reglas o convenciones
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Fuentes
Nota del archivista
Processed by Ethan Miller, Project Archivist, October 26, 2021. Finding aid completed by Anastasia Karel, Archivist, 2022.