Betty Tompkins started painting large scale, photorealistic, detailed images of penetration, masturbation or the female genitalia in 1969.

Her intent from the start was to have two disparate elements in order that "the abstract and the sexual content - coexist equally in the work." Or as she says : " I realized that if I cut off all the identifiers - heads, hands, feet, etc. - I could create these beautiful abstract images out of the part of the photograph that was most compelling which, of course, was the explicit sex part. »

www.galerierodolphejanssen.com/exhibitions/39-betty-tompkins/images

Curated by Alison Gingeras.

www.luxembourgdayan.com/

Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels.

Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels.

Over the past decade, Tompkins has significantly expanded her oeuvre, both in
terms of imagery and technique. Her first new paintings were made using novel
media such as rubber stamps and fingerprints, of which two important examples
are included in the current exhibition. More recently the artist has resumed her
use of the air brush, investing the painting’s immaculate surfaces with a
chromatic subtlety that stand in stark contrast to the powerfully explicit nature of
her subjects.
It is the second exhibition of Tompkins’ work at Galerie Andrea Caratsch. The first
one featured her early „Fuck Paintings“ and drawings from the late 60’s and early
70’s. This show is devoted to her latest work and will include 18 new paintings as
well as two rubber stamp paintings from 2006 and 2007.

http://www.galeriecaratsch.com/exhibitions/index.php?eS=Past&extitle=Tompkins_20.05.2011

The point of departure for the exhibition ‘No government No cry’ at CIAP in Hasselt from 23 April until 26 June 2011, is a manifesto written by artist Kendell Geers. Through poignant statements, he explores the often ignored link between political and natural revolutions, mourns the loss of our talent for revolution and the underlying causes, and gives us clues on how to re-member our inner alpha-bêtes to live a more true life.......

With special guests: Alec De Busschère, Anne Pajunen, Banksy, Belinda Blignaut, Betty Tompkins, Carl Abrahamsson, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Cendrine du Welz, Geoffroy de Volder, Heidi Voet, Ilse Ghekiere, Jesus Macconnell u no message me no mores, Kara Walker, Krööt Juurak, Laetitia Jeurissen, Laurent Devèze, Leif Elggren, Liz Kinoshita, Lucy Orta, Marina Abramovic, Mårten Spångberg, Monica Bonvicini, Nedko Solakov, Nicolas Bourriaud, Patrick Codenys, Paul McDevitt, Pierre-Olivier Rollin, Raoul Vaneigem, Raqs Media Collective, Renzo Martens, Sandy Williams, Siet Raeymaekers, Sinziana Ravini, Sophie Whettnall, Stephen Thompson, Tania Bruguera, Zin Taylor and others!

CIAP Actuele Kunst
Armand Hertzstraat 21 bus 1
BE-3500 Hasselt
Belgium
+32 (0)11 22 53 21
www.ciap.be

http://ciap.be/?p=1230

by Christina Voss.

Betty Tompkins paints gorgeous photorealistic works of art on a monumental scale, all explicit, detailed images of penetration, masturbation, and the female genitalia. Her first Fuck Painting was created back in 1969, and after a group show in the early 1970's, they were more or less left untouched by critics and dealers, seemingly due to their visual content. In 2003, the Centre Pompidou acquired Fuck Painting #1, and since then, there's been a new appreciation for the power, poignancy, and sheer beauty of her work.

Curated by Ingrid Dinter. "Inspired by MFK Fisher’s evocative prose, in particular her musings on the oyster, Dinter’s group exhibition is a dreamy take on things “oysterish.” The oyster, enigmatic of all ocean creatures with its tough exterior, is, like an artist, hard to pry open, yet worth the time it takes to shuck as inside its crusty shell hides not only the perfect mouthful of succulent, briny flesh, but the ever present possibility of discovering a pearl.....The exhibition is its own oyster and in the space festooned with pearls, it becomes clear that, as MFK Fisher describes, an artist’s chance, like a mollusc’s, '…to live at all is slim, and if he should survive the arrows of his own outrageous fortune and in the two weeks of his carefree youth find a clean smooth place to fix on, the years afterward are full of stress, passion and danger.' "

Read the CityArts review by Maureen Mullarkey here: http://www.dinterfineart.com/html/oyster_city_arts.html

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Ghada Amer, Beth B, Judie Bamber, Tracey Baran, Nancy Becker, David Beideman, Hans Bellmer, Mike Bidlo, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Brinker, Judy Chicago, Carol Cole, Maureen Connor, Gustave Courbet, Tee Corinne, John Currin, Sarah Davis, James Dee, Jay Defeo, Jim Dine, Leo Dohman, Marcel Duchamp, Carroll Dunham, Tracy Emin, India Evans, John Evans, Valie Export, Robert Forman, Neil Gall, Kathleen Gilje, Guerrilla Girls, Nancy Grossman, Barbara Hammer, Jane Hammond, Mona Hatoum, Stanley William Hayter, Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, David Humphrey, Don Joint Paul Joostens, Pamela Joseph, Mel Kendrick, Elisabeth Kley, Jeff Koons, Mark Kostabi, Shigeko Kubota, Zoe Leonard, Sherrie Levine, Lee Lozano, Henri Maccheroni, Chema Madoz, Réné Magritte, Gerard Malanga, Man Ray, Robert Mapplethorpe, Marcel Mariën, André Masson, Sophie Matisse, Ana Mendieta, Allyson Mitchell, Cathy de Monchaux, Vik Muniz, Wangechi Mutu, Gladys Nilsson, Yoko Ono, Pablo Picasso, Chloe Piene, Richard Prince, Daniel Ranalli, Oona Ratcliffe, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Katia Santibanez, Peter Saul, Naomi Savage, Egon Schiele, Carolee Schneemann, Mira Schor, Michelle Segre, Tom Shannon, Cindy Sherman, James Siena, Laurie Simmons, Kiki Smith, Julie Speed, Nancy Spero, Betty Tompkins, Kiyoshi Tsuchiya, John Tweddle, Tabitha Vevers, Douglas Vogel, Robert Watts, Hannah Wilke, Terry Winters, Beatrice Wood.

www.francisnaumann.com/EXHIBITIONS/VV/index.html

For the first time in the world, a museum will be displaying the feminine side of its own collections. This new presentation of the Centre Pompidou's collections will be entirely given over to the women artists from the 20th century to the present day. Curated by Camille Morineau.

Curated by Adrian Dannatt and Paul Kasim

The title of the exhibiton is derived from the word »revolve«: »to circle, to spin around«. The basic idea is to show the world(s) an artwork creates, includes or evokes. What revolves around a work of art? In »Revolver« we would like to present a layer of description usually left to commentators (critics, curators), the observer, or in the case of the artist, to the artist's statement or anecdotes. These descriptions are often quite casual: remarks at an opening, conversations, short tales that envelop the works like dust. They are often heterogenous, mixing very different aspects of a work and the biography of the artist. With »Revolver« we are trying to show an artwork's universe on its own level, its everyday life, its affinities and distances - portraits of artworks, not of artists.

There is a strong feminist tradition in dealing with issues of representation and anecdote in the past 40 years and we are deliberately trying to make a link with this tradition. We believe this approach makes apparent aspects that are crucial to the actual experience of an artwork, but are rarely represented.

Artists: Nina Beier, Anne Collier, Ruth Ewan, Adriana Lara, Lorna Macintyre, Flora Neuwirth, Mai-Thu Perret, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Anne Schneider, Betty Tompkins, Rita Vitorelli
Curated by Severin Dünser and Christian Kobald.

http://www.co-co.at/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10&Itemid=0&lang=en

www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/ryan/viennafair6-23-09.asp

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