As we continue to grapple with the results of last week’s Presidential election, the art of Riot Grrrl culture as captured by the 2015 exhibition Alien She at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts continues to offer timely insight. Writing for our sister publication Art Practical, author Melissa Miller notes, “The [exhibition] presents Riot Grrrls with one voice, with a ‘we’re all in this together’ attitude. In reality, the movement was troubled by the same internal debates that other generations of feminists have experienced, including substantive discussions about class privilege, racism, and homophobia within the movement itself.” Debate over the relative weights of gender identity, class, and race remains fraught in the wake of the election results. As we search for paths forward in the fight, Riot Grrl culture reminds us of the value of collective organizing across differences. This article was originally published on January 13, 2015.

L.J. Roberts. We Couldn’t Get In. We Couldn’t Get Out., 2006–07; installation view, Alien She, 2014. Courtesy of Phocasso and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco.

Currently on view at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), Alien She is a touring exhibition that examines the lasting impact of the Riot Grrrl punk-feminist movement on contemporary artists. The show’s title refers to that of a Bikini Kill song, with lyrics sung by Kathleen Hannah that begin, “She is me; I am her.”

This declaration of solidarity despite division could also be taken as a statement of intent as Alien She divides its focus across two temporally overlapping sections: an archival display of the cultural output of Riot Grrrls from around the world and a survey of seven artists—some contemporaneous with the movement—whose work is influenced by its politics, aesthetics, and representational and organizational strategies.

Read the full article here.