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Joan Braderman

Joan Braderman (born in 1948) is an American writer, performer, director and video artist. Inserting the artist into appropriated media images, her early work interrogated ideas of representation and U.S. culture. Braderman's video works are considered to have pioneered "stand up theory", describing the dissection of popular media through performative embodiment. Braderman is a professor of Film and Media Studies at Hampshire College, Massachusetts. In 1975, she founded the Heresies Collective, a “microcosm of the larger international women’s movement” which published a feminist art journal.

Early life and Education

Joan Braderman was born in Washington, DC, to parents Betty and Eugene Braderman.

Braderman attended Harvard University, graduating in 1970 with a BA cum laude. Braderman recalls being the only woman in her filmmaking class. In 1971 she entered graduate school at New York University. Braderman’s studies focused on 16mm filmmaking, while she learned video art production by self-teaching at various Media Access Centres in New York. Throughout the 1970’s, Braderman was an anti-war, feminist and civil rights activist, involved in political organizations. She received her MA from New York University in 1973, and a Masters of Philosophy in 1976.

Work

Braderman is president of the production company No More Nice Girls Productions. She has served on the board of directors of Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts, as well as many film and television associations, including the Association of Independent Film and Video Makers.

Braderman is a Professor of Video, Film and Media Studies at Hampshire college, Massachusetts. Her teaching work extends throughout the United States at The School of Visual Arts in New York City, The Boston Museum School, the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design, the Media School of the London Art Institute, and the Universidad catolica portuguesa in Porto, Portugal.

Personal life

Braderman married Robert Reckman in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1996, choosing to keep her maiden name.

Themes

Braderman’s work engages with ideas about female identity. A common theme in her work is an invasive and critical look at the production of media and popular culture, including the representation of women in these spaces. Braderman has stated: “my work has been about creating alternative representations of dominant rhetorical categories such as woman, sexuality, space, or politics." 

Braderman's work engages with feminist histories of collage, combining the medium with irony and black humour. Braderman’s work also invests in producing a record of a women’s movement that threatens to disappear from history.

Video Works

Natalie Didn’t Drown - Joan Braderman ‘Reads’ The National Enquirer (1983) 28 min, colour.
Braderman’s first video features the artist performing a monologue that satirizes the popular tabloid The National Enquirer. Braderman began developing the video after the founder of Paper Tiger TV, Dee Dee Halleck, dared her to besmirch the editor of the tabloid   Manuel De Landa co-directed the video. Natalie Didn’t Drown debuted Braderman’s style of performative one-woman commentary, later dubbed Stand-Up Theory. Natalie Didn’t Drown was originally broadcast on Paper Tiger TV and shown at the 1984 American Film Institute Video Olympics.
Joan Does Dynasty (1986) 31 min, colour.
Joan Does Dynasty involves Braderman using video editing techniques to insert her image into scenes from a popular American soap opera, providing a live running commentary and analysis of the soap. Braderman focused on deconstructing how the media presents gender and class. Joan Does Dynasty is considered “the most widely distributed feminist video ever made.
No More Nice Girls (1989) 44 min, colour.
Braderman’s No More Nice Girls comments on the artist’s lived experience in her community of feminist scholars and artists. The work alternates between fiction and autobiography, following the personal and political lives of multiple female protagonists. No More Nice Girls premiered at The Collective for Living Cinema in New York in 1989 and won first prize at the Daniel Wadsworth National Video Festival in 1990.
Thirty Second Spot Reconsidered (1989) 11min, colour.
Thirty Second Spot Reconsidered presents the fictional story of an artist in the 1970s who attempts to purchase network time on broadcast television in order to advertise counter-bicentennial activities. The video is intended to criticize censorship and the corporate systems that govern broadcast television.
Joan Sees Stars (1993) 60 min, colour.
Reminiscent of Joan Does Dynasty, Braderman uses editing techniques to insert herself into scenes from popular Hollywood films. Her interaction with the image raises questions about the American fascination with celebrity, and how gender operates in Hollywood film. Joan Sees Stars takes notable interest in Elizabeth Taylor’s movies. The film was co-directed by Dana Master.
Video Bites: Triptych For The Turn Of The Century (1998-1999) 24min, colour.
Para No Olvidar (2004) 6min
A video collage of Old Havana streets, which occupies a place in the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana’s permanent exhibition.

Feature Films

The Heretics (2009)

Written and directed by Braderman, The Heretics is Braderman’s first feature. Described as an experimental documentary, the film is a celebration of the Heresies Collective, a feminist art collective established in 1976, of which Joan was a founding member, and captures an inside look at the Second Wave Feminist movement. The Heretics is produced by Crescent Diamond TV.

Style and Soundtrack

The Heretics was shot in 24p mini-dv video. The film incorporates interview footage with still images, animation, archival footage, artworks and staged scenes where young actresses play the role of collective members. The collage style of the film intentionally recalls the diversity of experience within the feminist art world in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. The original soundtrack, primarily made by women, likewise draws from collage practices

The documentary specifically employs digital motion graphics to “extend the aesthetics of the magazine into the digital realm and onto the screen.” However, the bulk of the film consists of interviews with twenty-eight of the collective members, who re-visit what the collective meant to them and the memories they have of their time with the collective.

Plot

The plot is semi-autobiographical, and follows Braderman’s fictional first person account as she arrives in New York City in 1971 and is introduced to the artistic culture of lower Manhattan at the time. However, the narrative format is minimized and employed only as a framing device. Braderman does not focus on any one of the women, but rather makes the feminist movement itself the focus of her film. This allows the structure of the film to reflect the non-hierarchical structure of the collective, where no one woman is valued above the others. The film’s relationship to the past has been described as celebratory and nostalgic.

Production

In order to make the film, Braderman travelled between New Mexico and Italy in order to re-connect with former collective members who were now living in widely different locations around the world. The film was shot in Carboneras, Spain; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Northampton, Massachusetts; Portland, Maine; Venice, Italy; San Francisco, California, and New York City.

The former collective members featured in the film are Emma Amos, Ida Applebroog, Patsy Becker, Mary Beth Edelson, Su Friedrich, Janet Froelich, Harmony Hammond, Sue Heinemann, Elizabeth Hess, Joyce Kozloff, Arlene Ladden, Lucy Lippard, Mary Sabra Moore, Marty Pottenger, Miriam Schapiro, Amy Sillman, Joan Snyder, Pat Steir, Elke Solomon, May Stevens, Michelle Stuart, Susana Torre, Cecilia Vicuña, Elizabeth Weatherford, Sally Webster and Nina Yankowitz.

Reception

The Heretics has been overall well-received, garnering positive reviews online and in publications such as The New York Times and ARTFORUM. The film is celebrated for its spirited and affirmative look at a period of feminist revolution and great social change. However, some reviewers have criticized Braderman’s direction, claiming the documentary lacks focus and that the film makes empty and vague statements about inequality.

No More Nice Girls Productions

Braderman’s non-profit production company is located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The company produces film and video, multimedia works, web sites and web series for online, TV, home video and gallery distribution.

The No More Nice Girls mandate expresses an investment in allowing artists to secure freedom of speech through access to the medium of video and internet. They aim to produce and distribute analytical, intelligent film that prioritizes subjectivity and envisions a democratic future.

The company includes a facilities cooperative and a screening space, as well as community outreach programming. Other members include Crescent Diamond, Dana Master and Stashu Kybartes.

Films Produced By No More Nice Girls

Video Works
Natalie Didn’t Drown (1983) No More Nice Girls (1989) 30 Second Spot Reconsidered (1989) Joan Does Dynasty (1986) Video Bites: Framed (1998) Joan Sees Stars (1993)
Documentaries
For A Bi-Centennial Without Colonies (1977) 20 min.
The People’s Convention, South Bronx (1980) 18 min.
Waiting for the Invasion - U.S. Citizens in Nicaragua (1984) 28 min, colour. Directed by Dee Dee Halleck, this short documentary focuses on the Contra War in Nicaragua, and the atmosphere of paranoia and preparation that existed among young citizens in the time following Regan’s invasion of Grenada. This story is told through a focus on a diverse group of U.S. citizens who live and work in Nicaragua for different reasons. Braderman co-produced the documentary alongside Halleck, Skip Blumberg, Joel Kovel and Karen Ranucci. Waiting for the Invasion won Best Documentary at Global Village Documentary Festival in New York City in 1984.
Tell Them For Us; Madre in Nicaragua (1985) 28 min, colour. Braderman co-produced and edited this short documentary with CBS News cameraperson Jane Lurie. Tell Them For Us; Madre in Nicaragua focuses on a diverse group of American female members of the organization MADRE, as they travel within Nicaragua to learn about the effects of the conflict. Tell Them For Us was screened in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Writing

Braderman was a founding member of the Heresies Collective, which operated during the second wave of feminism. During the 1970s she contributed to the feminist journal publication that the collective released by writing and editing.

Joan Braderman has written critically about film and video as well as her experiences in the feminist movement. Her essays include Feminism and Video: A View From The Village, Reclaiming the Utopian Movement, and Radical Art in Theory and Practice.

Reception

Braderman’s work has been overall well-received, garnering positive reviews from The New York Times, Village Voice, ARTFORUM and many other art periodicals. 

In 1995, Braderman was given a retrospective by the De Cordova Museum in Massachussets. Braderman has been awarded multiple grants and fellowships, including the National Endowment for Arts, The New York Foundation for the Arts, the MacArthur Foundation for Digital Archive Creation, and the Bay Area Video Coalition MediaMaker of the Year award.