Rita Ackermann January 8 – February 7, 1998
Main Gallery

"I offer one illuminating example. In December of 1967, I watched a group of 13-year-olds from a London settlement house perform an improvised Christmas play as part of a therapeutic theatre program run by the International Theatre Club. The kids had concocted a show in which Santa Claus had been imprisoned by the Immigration authorities for entering the country without proper permission. The knock at official society was especially stinging, coming instinctively from some very ordinary youngsters, who has scarcely been exposed to any terribly advanced intellectual influences. And whom did the 13-year-olds decide to bring on as Santa's liberators? An exotic species of being known to them as 'the hippies,' who Shiva-danced to the jail house and magically released Father Christmas, accompanied by strobe lights and jangling sitars." -Theodore Roszak, "Youth and the Great Refusal", The Nation. March 25, 1968

"Among other references of material relating to the angst and intellect of teenage riot, I find myself often referring to material from the time of the 1968 student uprising, also the year I was born. The above quote does not directly refer to the images in my work. However, the layering of images in my recent paintings, the layering of past histories intertwined with personal histories, becomes my own mythology" -Rita Ackermann, December 1997

New works by Rita Ackermann, ballpoint pen, acrylic and pastel paintings on canvas, will be on display from January 8 – February 7, 1998