Lynn Hershman Leeson

With the documentary film !W.A.R. Women Art Revolution Lynn Hershman Leeson creates a monument to all the women who have changed the world of art since the 1960s as artists, curators and critics. The film is composed of film clips and interviews that Hershman Leeson has collected over a number of decades. Alongside important artists such as Yoko Ono, Yvonne Rainer and Carolee Schneemann, women in the museum business are also featured. Starting from portraits and film clips on the political background, the film tells of the struggle for the recognition of female artists in the second half of the 20th century. The high points of the feminist movement in the art scene are featured in a graphic novel with pictures of Spain Rodriguez. Lynn Hershman Leeson also developed an interactive installation to accompany the film. RAW / WAR is based on a website with a womens artist archive, to which users can add new pieces. In the exhibition space the online encyclopedia is projected onto the wall. Visitors can illuminate the pieces using sensorbased flashlights, which transfer their movements onto the Internet site. In this way, the project initiated by Hershman Leeson becomes a collaborative work in whose design anyone can participate.

1941 Born in Cleveland, Ohio; 1959–1963 Studied Museum Administration and Art at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, and the Cleveland Institute of Art (BSc); 1965 First solo exhibition in the United States (Feingarten Galleries, Los Angeles); 1970–1972 Studied Art Criticism at San Francisco State University (MA); 1971–1973 Worked internationally as an art critic under the pseudonyms of Juris Prudence, Herbert Goode, Gay Abandon. Coeditor of the magazine Artweek; 1977 First solo show outside the United States (Ewing and George Patton Galleries, Melbourne University; Exhibition Gallery, Monash University, Melbourne); 1984–1989 Director of the Inter Arts Center at San Francisco State University; 1986 Took part in the 42^nd Venice Biennale; 1987 Retrospective of her video work at the San Francisco International Festival; 1991 Lynn Hershman Retrospective, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London Video Viewpoints: Lynn Hershman, Museum of Modern Art, New York; 1993–2004 Chair in Electronic Arts at the University of California, Davis; 1995 Awarded the Siemens Medienkunstpreis by ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe, Germany; Virtually Yours: Retrospective of Lynn Hershman, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; 1999           Prix Ars Electronica for the Difference Engine #3; 2000 Retrospective of her films and videos at the Feminale – Filmfestival, Cologne; 2004–2010 Andrew D. White Chair at Cornell University, New York; 2005         International Digital Media and Arts Association Award Archive of her work accepted by Stanford University Libraries; Hershmanlandia: The Art and Films of Lynn Hershman Leeson, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle; 2006 Innovation that Matters Award, ZeroOne Festival, San José; 2007–2012 Chair of the Film Department at the San Francisco Art Institute; 2009 Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art (ACM SIGGRAPH); 2010 DAM Digital Art Award for her life’s work; Fleishhacker Foundation’s Eureka Fellowship; 2012 !W.A.R. Women Art Revolution received an award from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, as one of the year’s best documentary films; First Media Award for Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA); Lynn Hershman Leeson. Seducing Time, Kunsthalle Bremen; Lynn Hershman Leeson lives and works in San Francisco and New York.