Ladies Who Lit: BARKING MAD, a discussion of Rachel Yoder’s NIGHTBITCH
Join Ladies Who Lit at UIMA Chicago for BARKING MAD, a discussion of Rachel Yoder’s NIGHTBITCH within the context of UIMA’s current special exhibition, “Agency: Craft in Chicago from the 1970s-80s and Beyond.”
In NIGHTBITCH, the titular character’s career as an artist is interrupted when she becomes Mother. The book examines the Mother’s return to her self-identity through art making, specifically installation and performance-based work. UIMA’s “Agency” exhibition includes work by artists of various genders, races & origins. Still, cumulatively, it is a celebration of the non-white, non-male artists who leveraged their exclusion from the prevailing ~high art narrative~ of the time into the collective movement we now know as “craft.” Thanks to their efforts, craft emerged during the 1970s as an art form AND movement for artists invested in dismantling the prevailing systems of power.
NIGHTBITCH is a celebration of how powerful it can be to acknowledge rage, especially when it comes to enacting personal and societal change. Within the historical context that “Agency” so beautifully presents, this is bound to be an iconic kickoff to a great year of LWL discussions and programming!