michelle handelman
Michelle Handelman makes confrontational works that explore the sublime in it’s various forms of excess and nothingness. Her recent multimedia performance The Laughing Lounge was chosen by RoseLee Goldberg for Performa 05 and featured in the Feb 06 issue of Art in America. At once comedic and disturbing, her videos, performances, and public installations have shown at Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; American Film Institute, SF MOMA and her spectacles of post-feminist toughness at Exit Art, NYC; Cristinerose Gallery, NY; Jack Tilton/Anna Kustera Gallery, NY; Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art and The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. Prior to moving to New York in 1999, Handelman directed the feature documentary BloodSisters (1998 Bravo award) and collaborated for several years with Monte Cazazza, pioneer of the Industrial music scene in San Francisco. She has performed in several Lynn Hershman-Leeson productions for ZDF and Arte Television and collaborated with Eric Werner, co-founder of Survival Research Laboratories and conceptual spin artist Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid. Her fiction and critical writing appears in Inappropriate Behaviour (Serpents Tail, London), Apocalypse Culture (Feral House Press, Los Angeles), Herotica 3 edited by Susie Bright (Plume Books, SF) and several publications including Filmmaker Magazine and Indiewire.com. She is currently represented by Jack the Pelican Presents, New York and teaches in the Media Studies Graduate Program of The New School University.
Education
2001-1999 MFA Bard College
1989-1987 BFA The San Francisco Art Institute
1986-1983 The School of the Art Institute
1982-1980
Grants/Awards
2004 NYSCA Individual Artist Grant
Experimental Television Center Residency, New York
2001 Rockefeller Fellowship Nominee
1999 Grand Prize, Manchester Film Festival
Bravo Award, Bravo television
1996 American Film Institute Sony Visions Award
Rockefeller Fellowship Nominee
1994 Horizons Foundation Grant
San Francisco International Film Festival
Rutgers University S-8 Film Festival- Special merit
1992 Film Arts Foundation Grant
1991 SF Artspace Video Production Grant
Solo Exhibitions/Screenings
2006 Jack the Pelican presents, New York
This Delicate Monster, Le Petit Versailles, New York
2005 PERFORMA 05, curated by RoseLee Goldberg, Jack the Pelican presents, New York
National Museum of Macedonia, Skopje
This Delicate Monster , Rx Gallery, San Francisco
2004 This Delicate Monster , Jack the Pelican presents, Brooklyn
2002 Catherine Clark Gallery, San Francisco
The Lab, San Francisco
2000 Cristinerose Gallery, New York
Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut
1998 Videotheque de Paris, France
1997 Bologna Cultural Center, Italy
1996 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
National Film Theater, London
Roxie Cinema, San Francisco
Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley
The Director's Guild, Los Angeles
Joseph Papp Public Theater, New York
Selected Group Exhibitions and Screenings
2006 Scope Art Fair, Jack the Pelican presents, New York
Public Space:Media Space, LMCC Swing Space, New York
2005 Cats-in-Residence, curated by Rhonda Lieberman, White Box Gallery, New York
International Art Connection vol. 1&2, 00130 Gallery, Helsinki, Finland
Image Union, PBS-WTTW
International Shorts Festival, California State University, Chico
Art Chicago, Jack the Pelican Presents, Chicago
2004 Public.exe/Public Execution curated by Anne Ellegood and Michele Thursz, Exit Art, NY
Acting Out: video by Michelle Handelman and Peggy Ahwesh, Art Gallery of York University, Toronto
Scope Miami Art Fair, Jack the Pelican presents gallery, NY
Free Radio HDTS. curated by Fabienne Lasserre & Christy Gast. High Desert Test Sites 4, Joshua Tree, CA
2003 Nown, curated by Michele Thursz, Pittsburgh Arts Wood Street Galleries
Action Figure, curated by Miriam Sternberg, Bellevue Museum of Art, WA
Future Species, curated by David Liss, Dumbo Arts Center, NY
Melting Pop, curated by Daniela Cascella, Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena, Italy
Lights, Camera, Action, curated by Vikki Dempsey, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson
2002 Reel NY Series, curated by Kathy Brew and Garrison Botts, PBS -13/WNET
Transcinema 02, curated by Gregory Cowley, SMOMA, San Jose Museum of Art
The Big M, curated by Isis Arts and Michelle Hirschhorn, tours Europe
LA Freewaves, curated by Rhizome.org, American Film Insitute, LA
2001 Arse about Face performance series, curated by Deborah Edmeades, Jack Tilton Gallery, NYC
Art LIVE Festival, Turin, Italy
The New Festival, NY
2000 New Media Lounge curated by Michael Rush, Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Florida
Art Expo, Chicago, Cristinerose Gallery
MIX Festival, NY
1999 Unnatural, The Catharine Clark Gallery, SF
Little Kino in Slumberland, Exit Art, NY
1998 Fragmented Bodies: Identity or Violence, California State University at Pomona
New video work, The Knitting Factory, NY
The Ljubljana Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Slovenia
1997 Scared Stiff, Leslie Lohmann Gay Art Foundation Gallery, NY
Body Parts: Medical Imagery and Experimental Cinema Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley
Video Tensions, curated by Steve Seid, University of Arizona
MIX Festival, New York
1996 Done Time Catharine Clark Gallery, SF
London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, British Film Institute
Lesbian and Gay Film Festivals: Amsterdam, New Zealand, Toronto, Paris, Bologna, Honolulu, Philadelphia, Seattle, Athens, Boston, New York, Melbourne
MIX New York Experimental Queer Film Festival
1995 Reframing Exposure: Photo Technology and Body Memory Richmond Art Center, California
Film show with Hannah Wilke Exhibition Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF
Sony Visions, American Film Institute, LA
1994 Mill Valley Film Festival, California
As We Like It Side Street Projects, LA
The Illustrated Woman Conference, Center for the Arts at Yerba Buena, SF
Selected Bibliography
2006 “Performa 05”, Art in America (New York February, 2006)
2005 LaCroix, Ethan “Urban Affairs” Time Out Magazine (New York November 3, 2005)
Rosenberg, Karen “Performance Anxiety” New York Magazine (November 7, 2005)
“Gallery Selections” The New Yorker (New York November 2, 2005))
Leaverton, Michael “Pretty, ugly” SF Weekley (October 5, 2005)
Kurtz, Katie “This Delicate Monster” SF Bay Guardian (October 19, 2005)
2004 LaCroix, Ethan “Urban Affairs” Time Out Magazine (New York October 24, 2004)
Maine, Stephen “Dateline Brooklyn” Artnet.com (Dec.15, 2004)
Levin, Kim “Voice Choices” Village Voice (New York June 23, 2004)
2003 Venkatasubban, Sharmila “Video Game Plans” Pittsburgh City Paper (January 29, 2003)
Shaw, Kurt “Altered States” Pittsburgh Tribune (February 7, 2003)
2002 Smith, Sara "Super Action Figure" RES Magazine (July/August 2002)
Hom, Lisa "Girl on Film" SF Weekly (April 10, 2002)
2000 Rush, Michael “Performance Hops Back into the Scene” The New York Times (July 2, 2000)
“Gallery Selections” The New Yorker (New York March 13, 2000)
Simpson, Les “Chelsea Girl” Time Out Magazine (New York March 9, 2000)
1997 Dick, Kirby "Scream" Filmmaker Magazine (New York January 1997)
Williams, David E. "Partners in Pain" Film Threat Magazine (Los Angeles January 1997)
Roche, Harry, "Critic's Choice" SF Bay Guardian (Feb. 1997)
1996 Holden, Stephen. "A Shift in Focus" New York Times (New York June 7, 1996)
Stein, Elliott. "Absolutely Deviant" Village Voice (New York, June 1, 1996)
Kolker, Robert "Let's talk (and talk and talk) about Sex" Time Out (NY Nov 14, 1996)
Che, Cathay. "Reel Queer" Time Out (New York June 5, 1996)
Rephann, Lola. "Press Picks" New York Press (June 19, 1996)
Ambian, Robert. "Interview with Michelle Handelman" Release Print (SF March 1996)
1995 Sirius, R.U. "Top Ten" Art Forum Magazine (October 1995)
Noack, Frank. "Tod und Verzweiflung" Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin Nov. 10,1995)
1994 Cohn, Terri. "Body Blows" Visions Art Quarterly (Winter 1994)
Connor, Celeste. "Social Sights" Artweek (May 5,1994)
Winfree, Courtney. "Michelle Handles Herself" Film Threat Magazine (Los Angeles April 1994)
Publications
2001 Fashion Theory: the journal of dress, body and culture, Berg Publishers, London
Inappropriate Behaviour, Serpent’s Tail, London
1999 Art of The X-Files Lookout Publications, New York
1997 Sugar Baby Cups Magazine, New York
1995 Coming Up, the World's Best Erotica Richard Kasak Books, New York
1994 Sensoria from Sensorium. Mangajin Books, Toronto, Canada
Herotica 3. (Editor Susie Bright) Down There Press, San Francisco, California
1992 Framework. Violence issue. Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies
1990 The Media Conspiracy Against the Developing Mind, Apocalypse Culture 2 (Feral House Press, LA)
Professional Experience
2006-98 Media Studies Graduate Program, New School University, New York - Adjunct Professor
2005 Rhode Island School of Design – Visiting Artist
2002 California College of the Arts – Visiting Artist
1999 Cooper Union, New York – Visiting Artist
1997-96 Film Department, California College of the Arts, SF - Adjunct Professor
1997-95 New Genres Department, San Francisco Art Institute, SF - Adjunct Professor
Collections
Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, Russia
di Rosa Foundation and Preserve, California
Poju & Anita Zabludowicz
Jean Pigozzi
Photograph 30 x 40 inches
Photograph 40 x 50 inches
Photograph 11 x 14 inches
Drawing 11 x 14 inches
Photograph 14 x 11 inches
Photograph 11 x 14 inches
by artist Adam Simon
and commissioned by
All artworks copyright by their respective owners.