Early Interview of Cecilia Dougherty by Artist Amy Sillman

Cecilia Dougherty: An Interview

Cecilia Dougherty, video still from 2003 interview by Amy Sillman
Cecilia Dougherty, Video Data Bank interview by Amy Sillman, 2003

Available at the Video Data Bank

2003 | 00:43:33 | United States | English | Color | Stereo | 4:3 | Video

Collection: On Art and Artists, Interviews, Single Titles

Tags: FeminismFilm or VideomakingLGBTQSexuality

In this interview Cecilia Dougherty describes her work and her explorations into family interactions, outsider psychology, role-playing, lesbian sexuality, and popular culture. Her videos Grapefruit (1989) and Coal Miner’s Granddaughter (1991) work from within mass culture norms to create a lesbian dialogue within the “normal”—what Dougherty calls “the life of the ordinary lesbian and her working-class family.” Her more recent vides explore lesbian identity within a separate social sphere.

Interviewed by Amy Sillman in 2003, edited in 2013.

Cecilia Dougherty in conversation with Amanda Mendelsohn

Monday, Feb 27, 7PM (EST)

Video still, Gone, 2001

The work of Cecilia Dougherty explores the nature of queer women’s relationships to one another, society, and the everyday as well as providing a feminist analysis of lesbian sexuality, psychologies, and intimacies inside a culture that is, at best, indifferent and at worst, hostile. She often uses methodologies borrowed from documentary and biography to map contemporary realities over pop-historical icons, creating art that deals with nostalgia, popular culture, and the social realm.

Looking to Dougherty’s lasting legacy, we are pleased to present the lecture “Make Believe, It’s Just Like the Truth Clings to It: In Conversation with the Work of Cecilia Dougherty.” The event is a conversation between Cecilia Doughery and Amanda Mendelsohn of the Video Data Bank at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Register here: https://forms.gle/cg3w6S9eNGHM44Dv5

The event will be held in Zoom.