Join the Smithsonian American Art Museum for a virtual film screening featuring the work of artistic duo Girl. Made up of the Brooklyn-based artists Chitra Ganesh and Simone Leigh, Girl created the collaborative video My Dreams, My Works Must Wait Till After Hell (7:14 mins., 2011). Set to a haunting score of Japanese flutes and drums, viewers observe the unclothed back of a Black woman. Turned away, the woman’s body represents both vulnerability and a declaration of strength and refusal to be available to desiring or oppressive eyes. After this mesmerizing screening, Ganesh is joined by Saisha Grayson time-based media curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, to discuss how this work asserts and protects the right to the complex, concealed inner lives for women of color and constitutes a queer, feminist response to centuries of the female nude depicted in Western art history.

This program is part of Viewfinder: Women’s Film and Video from the Smithsonian, a monthly virtual film screening and conversation series sponsored by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, Because of Her Story.  
 
Visit WomensHistory.si.edu for more information about upcoming events in this screening series.

Image credit: Girl, Simone Leigh, Chitra Ganesh, My Dreams, My Works Must Wait Till After Hell, 2011, single-channel digital video, color, sound; 07:14 minutes, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Samuel and Blanche Koffler Acquisition Fund, 2019.33.1, © Girl (Simone Leigh and Chitra Ganesh); Courtesy of the artists and Luhring Augustine, New York