Alien She at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Alien She includes the articulate, heartfelt, sometimes angry and frequently humorous markers of a pre-internet age: young cinéastes’ chain letters in Miranda July’s Big Miss Moviola; tear-off tab flyers leading to critical texts in Stephanie Syjuco’s FREE TEXTS; Ginger Brooks Takahashi’s bookmobiles. Before “social media” was in our everyday lexicon, these Riot Grrrl-inspired artists provided a social platform for conversation, producing works, projects, and social interventions that connected artists, women, feminists, and queer activists, who, in turn, started visual riots of their own. In addition, the visual language of the Dada-esque campus flyers, the startling and effective use of found and everyday textiles, and the liberal references to icons like Judith Butler and Adrian Piper blur the line between art-making and social critique and underscore the exuberance of this social movement.

Alien She (group exhibition), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, through 25 January 2015.

Tammy Rae Carland, One Love Leads to Another, photographs, Alien She, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco

Allyson Mitchell, I’m With Problematic/Women’s Studies Professors Have Class Privilege, framed shirts, Alien She, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco

L.J. Roberts, Mom Knows Now (guerilla banner drop on the steeple of the Ira Allen Chapel, University of Vermont), hand-knit yarn, Alien She, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco

Ginger Brooks Takahashi, Untitled (Diagram of Influences), a personal document of MOBILVRE BOOKMOBILE project, 2001-2006, drawing, color photographs, Alien She, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco