Blog

High­light­ing the Women Artists of Gov­er­nors Island

Mar 19, 2021 11:53 am

Gov­er­nors Island has been a hub for artists and the arts since it reopened to the pub­lic in 2005, allow­ing vis­i­tors to engage with many artis­tic medi­ums includ­ing visu­al art, writ­ten word, live per­for­mance and more. In the Island’s rich his­to­ry of artis­tic pur­suits, women have often led the way, curat­ing, cre­at­ing, and pre­sent­ing art and exhi­bi­tions on Gov­er­nors Island every year, many as part of our com­mu­ni­ty of arts and cul­ture pro­gram­ming part­ner orga­ni­za­tions. In hon­or of Women’s His­to­ry Month, learn more about a few of the women who have cre­at­ed com­mis­sioned art­works for Gov­er­nors Island and whose works have been pre­sent­ed at ded­i­cat­ed exhi­bi­tions on our shore. 

Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread, an Eng­lish artist who works pri­mar­i­ly in sculp­ture, is the first woman to win the pres­ti­gious Turn­er Prize, an annu­al award pre­sent­ed to British visu­al artists. Her work often uses con­crete casts to explore pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive space and our rela­tion­ships with objects and settings. 

One of the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island’s first com­mis­sioned works, her sculp­ture, Cab­in, has been sit­u­at­ed on Dis­cov­ery Hill since 2016, being placed there dur­ing the con­struc­tion of The Hills. Tucked into the lush foliage at the end of a nat­u­ral­is­tic path­way, Cab­in pro­vides a unique expe­ri­ence for vis­i­tors to inter­act up-close with pub­lic art. This con­crete cast of the inte­ri­or of a sim­ple cab­in cre­ates a sense of con­tem­pla­tive qui­et, con­trast­ing with the bus­tle of the city vis­i­ble across the water. 

Susan Philip­sz

Susan Philip­sz, a Scot­tish artist and 2010 recip­i­ent of the Turn­er Prize, is best known for her sound-based instal­la­tions and audio works. Many of her pieces con­sist of her own voice singing unac­com­pa­nied, though oth­ers explore a vari­ety of audio sources and sounds. 

Com­mis­sioned by the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island, her 2013 piece Day is Done was a large-scale instru­men­tal sound instal­la­tion that played in two loca­tions, from speak­ers installed near Liggett Ter­race and Yan­kee Pier. The piece took the form of a ​‘call and response’ ver­sion of the mil­i­tary bugle call, Taps, sig­ni­fy­ing the end of day­time and the begin­ning of evening, and pay­ing homage to the Island’s his­to­ry as a mil­i­tary base. Day is Done was played dai­ly at 6pm, Gov­er­nors Island’s clos­ing time, and could be heard both on the Island and from fer­ries depart­ing it. 

Shantell Mar­tin

Shantell Mar­tin (pic­tured in the head­er pho­to work­ing on The May Room; pho­to by Tim­o­thy Schenck) is a New York-based artist who has cre­at­ed site-spe­cif­ic instal­la­tions for venues across the world. Much of her work fea­tures her sig­na­ture black and white line draw­ings, some­times cre­at­ed in a stream-of-con­scious­ness style at the site of installation. 

For Gov­er­nors Island’s 2019 sea­son, the Trust com­mis­sioned Mar­tin to cre­ate The May Room, incor­po­rat­ing both the exte­ri­or and inte­ri­or of a decon­se­crat­ed for­mer mil­i­tary chapel near the Island’s east­ern shore. The May Room hon­ors the structure’s past use by rein­ter­pret­ing it into a mod­ern site for reflec­tion and con­tem­pla­tion. The May Room’s inte­ri­or fea­tures labyrinthine forms on the floor that invite vis­i­tors to explore the space, as well as cus­tom-built, mov­able fur­ni­ture in the shapes of let­ters, allow­ing vis­i­tors to inter­act with the work. 

Yto Barrada

Yto Bar­ra­da is a French-Moroc­can mul­ti­me­dia artist whose work includes sculp­ture, prints, pho­tog­ra­phy, film and more. In 2019, her exhi­bi­tion The Pow­er of Two Suns, pre­sent­ed with guest artist Bet­ti­na, was one of two inau­gur­al exhi­bi­tions for the first sea­son of LMCC’s new­ly ren­o­vat­ed Arts Cen­ter at Gov­er­nors Island. 

The Pow­er of Two Suns explored themes of com­mu­ni­ty, iso­la­tion, and dis­as­ter, fea­tur­ing a large-scale instal­la­tion by Bar­ra­da, a selec­tion of sculp­tur­al pieces from Bettina’s remark­able body of work, and numer­ous two-dimen­sion­al works by both artists, includ­ing prints, draw­ings, pho­tographs and pho­tograms. The var­ied forms includ­ed in the exhi­bi­tion invit­ed vis­i­tors to explore the space and, in many cas­es, exam­ine the works from mul­ti­ple angles, encour­ag­ing a dynam­ic view­ing expe­ri­ence for the pieces and the Arts Center’s gallery space. 

Kamee­lah Janan Rasheed

Kamee­lah Janan Rasheed is a writer, artist and edu­ca­tor whose works often com­bine pho­tog­ra­phy and col­lage with writ­ten com­po­nents to cre­ate immer­sive, text-based instal­la­tions explor­ing themes of race, mem­o­ry, his­to­ry, rit­u­al, and archival practices. 

In 2017, LMCC pre­sent­ed an exhi­bi­tion of Rasheed’s work titled A Sup­ple Perime­ter as part of their annu­al Riv­er to Riv­er fes­ti­val. A Sup­ply Perime­ter fea­tured a vari­ety of works dis­played in Build­ing 110, includ­ing prints, poems, and pro­jec­tions, often manip­u­lat­ed as though by pho­to­copi­er. Rasheed’s writ­ten works If/​Then and Ques­tions were dis­played on the mar­quee and façade of the his­toric Fort Jay The­ater near Yan­kee Pier, with mes­sages rotat­ing biweek­ly, invit­ing vis­i­tors to engage with the pieces as they changed over the course of the season.