Hands at Work Film, 2016
16 mm polyester film, cotton-wrapped polyester thread, lithography ink, LED
68 1/8" x 45"
Shoshana Wayne Gallery is pleased to announce that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has acquired Hands at Work Film, 2016, by Sabrina Gschwandtner.
First exhibited at Shoshana Wayne Gallery in 2017 as part of her second solo exhibition at the gallery, Hands at Work Film touches upon Gschwandtner's recurring fascination with craft, film montage, women's labor and the handmade. The work is one of an ongoing series of "film quilts." These are powerfully visual, brightly illuminated assemblages consisting of abstract patterns that are based on popular American quilt motifs. They are sewn together from cut strips of 16 mm film and presented in LED light boxes.
As with many of the artist's quilts, the film footage comes from a collection of 16 mm educational films that were de-accessioned from the Fashion Institute of Technology and document the making of textiles for cultural, political and daily uses. Footage used in Hands at Work Film shows hands at work, specifically female hands weaving, knitting, sewing, dyeing cloth, tying string, spinning yarn, and feeding fabric into machines. The artist’s decision to focus on hands, the way they move, perform their craft, and enact their labor, signifies undervalued female labor, paying homage to the historical lineage of female film editors who stitched together movies, while emphasizing the making and unmaking of meaning that is intrinsic to the language of images.
Hands at Work Film is a part of the major exhibition and catalog, "Crafting America" at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, on view February 6 - May 10, 2021 and travelling nationally afterwards (https://crystalbridges.org/exhibitions/crafting-america/).
Sabrina Gschwandtner has exhibited widely in the United States as well as internationally at institutions including the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC; the Museum of Arts and Design in New York; and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Her film quilts are currently on view in permanent collection exhibitions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the RISD Museum. Her 3 channel video quilt "Screen Credit" is on view at LACMA's Screens at Stark Bar through the end of the year. Gschwandtner’s work is also included in the permanent collections of the MFA Boston and the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, among many other public and private collections worldwide. Gschwandtner received a BA from Brown University and an MFA from Bard College. She is the recent recipient of a Money for Women/ Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Award.
