CRONE Benefit Auction To Be Held at Gavin Brown Enterprise 7/26

Antoinette Aurell is pleased to announce the CRONE Benefit Auction to be held at Gavin Brown Enterprise on Monday July 26th from 6:30 pm to midnight, in favor of the realization of CRONE, a documentary video project conceived by Antoinette Aurell.

The event will befeaturing a Thai dinner by world acclaimed artist Rirkrit Tiravanija and performances by folk/rock songwriter and musician Spider (JaneHerships), Icelandic installation and performance artist Shoplifter (Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir), and Swiss choreographer Alexandra Sachspresenting "Schau", performed by Japanese artist Mai Ueda, and recently awarded with the Watermill Residency Program.

The 50 circa multimedia auctioned artworks, produced by male and female artists, have a special focus on womanhood and include a uniquesection of unseen works from Thai artists. Among internationally renown artists at auction: Pierre Huyghe, Douglas Gordon, Jorge Pardo, Philippe Parreno, Elizabeth Peyton, Tobias Rehberger, and Not Vital.

CRONE is a visual oral history zooming in on the extraordinary voice of the older woman. While an abundance of media fixates on the young, famous, rich, and equally on violence and corruption, CRONE passionately veers off towards the under-represented older women, reclaiming what it is to be an experienced and knowledgeable wellspring and guardian of life.

CRONE is concerned with the subtle undercurrents of being born female, relaying stories from generation to the next about the implication and evolution of womanhood in the 21st century.CRONE is a documentary video project, featuring thirteen women, most of them veterans of the civil rights and feminist movements of the sixties and seventies.

The project will be bringing together anonymous women alongside established scholars from different fields: mid-wife,theologian, artist, actress, pagan priestess, author, curator, primatologist, and film director. Some of the women who will be featured are LucyLippard, Meredith Monk, Ursula Reuter Christiansen, Coletta Long, Mary Bauermeister, Nancy Spero, and Mary Daly. The womenwill be prompted to respond to the same thirteen questions around topics such as work, motherhood, tradition, war, and the idea of Goddess.

CRONE will be showcased as a multi-channel video installation in an overlapping effect of voices and images, and further more as a singlechannel documentary film.

Antoinette Aurell explains: "My belief in the importance to learn from the intuition/intelligence particularly of elder women has guided mydesire to access and share such 'inside stories'.

"Antoinette is a Japanese-American photographer and video artist. Her photography has been featured in ID, The Face, Interview, Vogue, Elle, Purple, and more. Antoinette's work has been exhibited at Alleged in NYC, Deep Gallery in Tokyo, Barbican Gallery in London, Colette inParis, and in the International Festival of Fashion Photography (Monaco, Biarritz, Paris, NYC).

Among her video art projects, she collaboratedwith Susan Cianciolo on numerous short films including "Pro-Abortion", "Love Life" and "It's Just An Illusion". In 2005 Antoinette createdher first solo video project, "Black Widow Party," inaugurating a series of works under the name of A Red Tent Film. Antoinette currentlylives between NYC and Chiang-Mai, Thailand.

".............the subject is irritating, especially for women; it is not new. The quarrel over feminism has spilled enough ink already, at thepresent it is almost a closed discussion: say no more... Besides, is there a problem? And what is it?... What is The Situation of women?" -Simone De Beauvoir , 1946