Document 25: Excerpt from Cheri Gaulke, interview with Michelle Moravec, 6 August 1992. Woman's Building Oral History Project. Transcript in author's personal collection.



Introduction

   The following excerpt, from longtime Woman's Building member Cheri Gaulke's 1992 oral history interview, describes an incident that illustrated to her that the Woman's Building had reached the end of its history.

   CG: I think what really hit home for me was when I really realized that we had sort of outlived our function. We hosted a solo exhibition of an artist that involved us getting equipment, raising money. It took a lot for us to put on this show. It was a video installation show, and I don't think I want to mention the artist's name, but in order to get a little more visibility for the show, we co-sponsored it with another organization. But they didn't do any of the work. We did all the work. The show was at our space. And when I saw the artist's resume in our gallery, under "Solo Shows," she had credited the co-sponsoring organization as where she had done her show, rather than us. That she, in her resume, didn't feel that it looked good for her career to put the Woman's Building when we had busted our butts to do a show for her. That really upset me. And rather than just being mad at her, I saw it as the reality of 1990 and showing at the Woman's Building, or not showing at the Building. So I think for me, in my mind that was a turning point when I realized we needed to stop killing ourselves, because nobody cared as much as a few of us on the Board. [laughs] And we were killing ourselves for no good reason.

   



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