Curator Patricia Maloney uses "Brass in Pocket" by Chrissie Hynde/The Pretenders to set the stage for Make You Notice at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery. Hynde stands in the shadow of women rockers like Patti Smith, Joan Jet, and Pat Benatar--all women who didn't appease commercial interests to play in dotting girl groups. Female rockers possess/ed gritty hard-edged sex appeal and powerful personas that challenge/ed the male-centric rock world. In "Brass in Pocket" Hynde assertively lists some of her assets (arms, style, fingers, imagination, etc.) that she is going to employ to demand your attention. The four artists in Make You Notice (Lisa Anne Auerbach, Kate Gilmore, Laura Swanson, and Jenifer Wofford) use their bodies, personas, and narratives to halt the viewer's attention while subtly paying homage to the feminist performance artists of the 1970s. While Make You Notice addresses gender politics, it clearly has a larger and more nuanced agenda that engages the viewer after a period when the art world has become so fatigued on issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation.

Laura Swanson

The focus of Laura Swanson's photographs is the difference between being looked at versus being seen. Swanson's photographs underscore our unease about physical differences, maladies, and disabilities in a society where we must negotiate both the rudeness of staring and of ignoring. Swanson is acutely aware of the viewers' dilemma and slyly plays with them by hiding or camouflaging herself from the viewer. Moreover, at first glance, the viewer is unaware if these are self-portraits; the very act of representing oneself or being represented is at issue and calls to mind the controversial work of Diane Arbus. Moreover, Swanson represents the range of her personality (from dark and gothic to playful and humorous) without being didactic in representing her "otherness".

Kate Gilmore, video still from Anything, 2006

Kate Gilmore shows videos that present her engaged in impossible and extreme tasks. "Anything. . ." shows Gilmore attempting to reach the video camera that is suspended high above her head. After grasping towards the camera--the unattainable--Gilmore moves a table over and climbs on it to reach the camera. Unfortunately the table does not provide her with the requisite height. Gilmore then piles chair upon chair in a heap and bundles the whole mess together with string. "Anything. . ." has the sculptural sensibility of Nancy Rubins and the comical grace of Mary Catherine Gallagher. The viewer is acutely aware of the impossibility of her task and the foreboding doom if she fails and plummets to the ground. In contrast to the gothic and abject quality of many female performance works of the 70s, Gilmore's work uses a refreshing and novel sense of physical comedy.

The artists in Make You Notice play with ideas of performing identity and the balance between desiring credit, attention, and possibly approval, whilst making the viewer aware of their talents, individuality, and range of being. Moreover, to Maloney's credit she doesn't mention the hook line in "Brass in Pocket". Anyone who knows the song, automatically completes the lyrics in his/her mind. The specialness of Make You Notice is the way that the artists command the viewer's attention and further the dialogue of performace/perfoming.

Make You Notice will be on view at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery through May 24th.