Sometimes, I assume that being a mom makes you not ambitious or intellectual. The irony is I am a mom and in an earlier post I admit that I like being a mom. I’m still sorting that out (and I apologize to you who are also moms).  I’m not the only one with anti-mom thoughts. Ken Johnson’s New York Times review of Michelle Grabner‘s solo show at the James Cohan gallery last year, hints at it. He claims that the show is boring by labeling her “a middle class tenured professor and soccer mom.”  While there are plenty of examples that show you can have a family and an art career, there is also plenty of sentiment that mom’s don’t make good art.  We all have to sort out archetypes (and allocate our energies), but Michelle Grabner’s response the soccer mom slamming is to basically put her exhibition on a soccer ball.

Who is Michelle? The stats:

+Co-Curator of the 2014 Whitney Biennial!

+Founder of the Suburban (one of the most prolific alternative art spaces)!

+Founder of the Poor Farm!

+Chair of the Painting and Drawing Department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago!

+Exhibiting artist for over 20 years!

-Middle class tenured professor?

-Soccer mom?

Buy a Ball:

I might own the same number of playground balls as I do art objects. And playing soccer with art would be a score. You can spend over $100 on a Premier League ball or  a Champions League ball. Or you can spend $65 on a Michelle Grabner’s cheeky rebuttal. Order online from THE THING Quarterly or you can stop by Printed Matter in New York. I also included THE THING Quarterly in a recent post on art subscriptions.

Read about Michelle’s work:

   

More balls: