Focus on this artwork and analyze the History.
Lacy designed Three Weeks in May in collaboration with artists Leslie Labowitz, Jill Soderholm, Melissa Hoffman and Barbara Cohen. It was sponsored by the Woman's Building and Studio Watts Workshop. Lacy designed the expanded performance to be a "simultaneous juxtaposition of art and non-art activities within an extended time frame, taking place within the context of popular culture." Lacy had a background in the anti-rape movement. The artists employed a mass media performance as a means to make social change through art with Lacy crediting the theories of her former CalArts professor Allan Kaprow, who coined the term "happening", with informing her art's transition to the public sphere. Media was integral to the performance structure of Three Weeks, both as a means to create a public dialogue about rape and a way to bring disparate nonviolence organizations and ideologies together on a common issue. The media was engaged through press conferences, television programs, and radio talk shows.The City Mall Shopping Center was chosen as the site of an installation piece due to its proximity to Los Angeles City Hall. Two 25-foot maps of the greater Los Angeles Area were used for Three Weeks. On one of the maps, every day Lacy used a large red "RAPE" stamp to mark locations where rapes from the previous day had been reported. Reports were taken from the Los Angeles Police Department, who assigned an information officer to work with Lacy. The second map included rape hotlines and the locations of rape crisis centers in the United States.Labowitz organized a performance series addressing rape that was held at lunchtime in the underground City Mall Shopping Center for four consecutive days. She collaborated with different groups for the performances. The Rape was developed in collaboration with Women against Rape, Men against Rape. All Men Are Potential Rapists included two men from the Los Angeles Men's Collective. The performances Myths about Rape and Women Fight Back were done with the help of Woman's Building members.Lacy created the performance installation She Who Would Fly at Garage Gallery for Three Weeks. Over the course of two afternoons, she invited women to voice their experiences with rape. The women then wrote their experiences on paper that was taped to the location where they were sexually assaulted on one of the maps that covered the walls of the small gallery space. Poet Deena Metzger scrawled a description of her rape on one of the walls. She Who Would Fly was opened to the public for an evening and visitors could enter four at a time and read the stories. A winged lamb carcass was suspended from the ceiling and four performers, each having experienced sexual violence, sat silently above the door, naked and covered in red greasepaint.Three Weeks also included a performance piece on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall, a rape "speak-out", and self-defense classes for women in an attempt to highlight and curb sexual violence against women.
rape crisis centers in the United States Studio Watts Workshop Women against Rape happening Los Angeles City Hall Los Angeles Allan Kaprow greater Los Angeles Area Woman's Building Men against Rape Deena Metzger Los Angeles Police Department Leslie Labowitz anti-rape movement self-defense nonviolence