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Nicole Woods, PhD

@performing_chance

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L.A.-based art historian, prof, critic. 1st book on Fluxus artist Alison Knowles (@uchicagopress); 2nd book (in progress) on Bob Thompson. SAAM Fellow

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Friends! Please join me this Thursday for a talk on @alisonknowlesofficial and her time as a faculty member @calarts.artschool in the early 1970s. We’ll discuss her deeply influential class on intermedia, graphic arts, and the performance-environmental work, #TheHouseofDust (1967-75), the subject of chapter 5 of my book @performing_chance. We’ll also discuss archival research, critical inquiry, and the complexities of writing about ephemeral, time-based works, and computational poetry. @aestheticspolitics

#calarts #AlisonKnowles #computerpoems #womensart by @performing_chance

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Profoundly grateful for the extended time in NYC to celebrate the life and art of @alisonknowlesofficial. Her achingly beautiful memorial @judsonchurchnyc, the opening of her retrospective @nyugrey and its scholar’s panel (where I was able to share some writing), the official book launch of my monograph on her work at @printedmatterinc (where she and I visited together long ago), the singing and laughing with old friends, and all of the textures in between… it’s two weeks I’ll never forget.

Thank you @saigray for your close and thoughtful reading of my book and leading an excellent discussion. Thank you @karenmoss3242 for including me in the exhibition catalog and on the panel (and for the lodgings!), and @tinariversryan’s lovely family for their hospitality. Thank you @hannahbhiggins, @joereinstagram, @jessicahiggins, @zo_reins, @clrajoy, @millerfenwood, @elizaproctor, @erikaknerr, @onlyonelarrymiller, and all of Alison’s dear family and friends. Thank you to so many friends who came to the various events. I’m sorry I couldn’t see everyone! And, most importantly, big thanks to my wonderful family for always supporting my work and travels (@rollinie and H).

The first photo is “something red for Alison,” and the last is Alison, Kari, and I together at her opening @bampfa in July 2022 💛 by @performing_chance

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Thank you Art Libraries Society of North America @arlis_na for the lovely review of my book on Alison Knowles @performing_chance! I especially appreciate these bits:

“Woods’ key contribution is her argument that Knowles’ use of chance was not merely inherited from John Cage or determined by her peers in Fluxus, but transformed through her sustained attention to everyday life and its ordinary actions and materials. Although Knowles was not formally aligned with the feminist art movement of the period, Woods shows how her practice made gendered experience visible through its attention to domestic labor, food, sensory experience, and social exchange. The result is a persuasive and meticulously researched account of an artist that unsettles the male-centered narratives through which Fluxus has often been understood.”

“… the book’s richness lies in its archival materials: photographs, ephemera, process documentation, and clippings. Extensive notes further support advanced research. Performing Chance is an essential addition for academic art libraries, museum libraries, and collections supporting contemporary art, feminist art history, and performance art. It is especially valuable for libraries seeking to revise inherited canons and represent artists whose work has been overshadowed by traditional, male-centered historiographies of collaborative avant-garde practice.”

@alisonknowlesofficial @uchicagopress #AlisonKnowles #Fluxus #feministarthistory #artlibraries by @performing_chance

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📣 Friends, colleagues, and fans of Alison Knowles & Fluxus! Please join me in conversation with @saigray at the NYC book launch of my book @performing_chance— the first in-depth study of the inimitable visual and performance artist & author @alisonknowlesofficial @printedmatterinc, 6-8pm. Published by @uchicagopress the book charts Knowles’s extraordinary art and life from the late 1950-1970s, including her experiments in painting, installation, haptic space, computer poems, book arts, and proto-eco-feminist ecologies of making. Then head over tomorrow to @nyugrey for the final venue of Knowles’s fantastic traveling retrospective curated by @karenmoss3242 (on view through January 2027). by @performing_chance

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Thank you @vukvukovic.phd for your thoughtful review of @performing_chance for @asap_review! As a fellow postwar art scholar, especially of Alison Knowles’s friend and collaborator Nam June Paik, I’m so grateful for your close reading. It’s incredibly gratifying to have an art historical review that understands both the monographic method and the importance of deep analysis and interpretation of women artists—without resorting to gossipy biographical tales that do no service to the actual work—both in and out of Fluxus. As ever, thank you to @alisonknowlesofficial for a lifetime of pioneering art and performance. by @performing_chance

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2 months ago

RIP Simone Forti, a legend in dance, performance, conceptual art, writing, music, sculpture, holography, feminist pedagogy… all of it. I’ll forever be grateful for the time she gave me at her home in Westwood as I was finishing up research on @performing_chance and trying to sort out @alisonknowlesofficial’s work at @calarts, not to mention their early days together in NY. Their friendship, collaborations, and admiration for each other was palpable. A real joy to behold, even decades later. 🤍🕊️ #simoneforti #alisonknowles #womenswork #fluxus #ananthologyofchanceoperations by @performing_chance

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Official press release for the final stop (and only east coast venue) for Alison’s Knowles’s first major career retrospective (link in bio)! Honored to have been part of the exhibition’s planning years ago, and the opportunity to write about Knowles for the catalogue. My thanks to curator Karen Moss and @nyugrey for an invitation to discuss my monograph on Knowles and her pioneering work with other wonderful thinkers on a panel following the opening. See you there! @alisonknowlesofficial @performing_chance @uchicagopress #alisonknowles #greymuseum #performingchance #fluxus by @performing_chance

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So many wonderful moments during my @americanart research fellowship these past months. A favorite was spending the day at @glenstonemuseum with two dear friends from grad school (and brilliant art historians). Capped off by a dip into a Maryland brewery to catch the World Cup final match. ¡Viva España! 🇪🇸 by @performing_chance

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3 months ago

Excited about this book event at @printedmatterinc this September! Please join me for the NYC launch of @performing_chance + conversation. The event follows the opening of @alisonknowlesofficial’s retrospective the week prior at the NYU’s Grey Museum @nyugrey 💛 #printedmatter #alisonknowles #performingchance #nyugreyartmuseum @uchicagopress by @performing_chance

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Today! Please join me at 3pm CST for a book talk on @performing_chance hosted by the Society of Contemporary Art Historians @scah_ig. I will briefly read an excerpt from one of its chapters, leaving ample time for a robust discussion with @vukvukovic.phd and @nonibrynjolson about the book’s main arguments—especially feminist art making in the 1960s-70s. We’ll also discuss the tricky nature of the monographic method in art historical research. Link in bio! by @performing_chance

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4 months ago

What an honor this week to have joined my brilliant fellow SAAM fellows @americanart for the annual public lectures reflecting current book and dissertation projects. I am awed and inspired by my colleagues, and I hope folks will head over to the museum’s YouTube channel to view the talks (available until next year’s lectures). Thank you to @aagoerlitz and her amazing staff, the @archivesamerart, @hirshhorn, @michaelrosenfeldgallery, @columbia, @ngadc, @glenstonemuseum for opening their collection and archives to me as I begin, in earnest, to shape this second book project on #BobThompson. Thanks to my family for supporting me all these months away from home! by @performing_chance

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4 months ago

Happy Birthday, Alison. You are very missed 💔 by @performing_chance

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5 months ago