Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz (Los Angeles 1978-1980)

After working together throughout 1977 on Three Weeks in May (Lacy), In Mourning and In Rage (Lacy and Labowitz), and Record Companies Drag their Feet (Labowitz), Lacy and Labowitz decided for formalize a coalition of artists, activists, media reporters, and politicians built during their performances on violence against women. The notion was to provide a structure to nourish activist feminist art on these themes, and become a power base to approach the media, address the community on women’s issues, and apply for funding.

Ariadne: A Social Art Network was designed to have a minimal administrative structure and a loose and fluid membership. It included women artists who had worked with Lacy and Labowitz in a series of performances, supporters within city government, media reporters, and women who had emerged from the audiences who wanted to participate.

Activities were organized under three concepts: Education, including classes at the Woman’s Building in political performance and media workshops and lectures; Vision and Theory, composed of member’s writings on political art and violence, open forums on relevant topics, and special events ofa critical or theoretical nature; and the Projects themselves, both Lacy and Labowitz’ and those of other artists in the community.

Ariadne was viable for a year and a half, sponsoring several community dialogues—including a well publicized screening of the movie “Hardcore” at Columbia Studios, co-sponsored by California Advocates for Trollops, where feminists could express their perceptions and analysis of the film to reporters. An apprenticeship class at the Feminist Studio Workshop created the Take Back the Night Float for the San Francisco March National Perspectives on Pornography conference. Projects and exhibitions, including the Incest Awareness Project by Labowitz, Bia Lowe, __________and Issue, an exhibition by Lucy Lippard at the ICA in London, continued under the auspices of Ariadne until the end of the decade.