Mary Coble is an American feminist artist. Coble was born in 1978 and is from Julian, North Carolina. Coble currently lives and has a studio in Gothenburg, Sweden and she is the Senior Lecturer in the Fri Konst and Photography Units of the MFA Programs at Valand Academy of Art, Gothenburg University. Coble is an advocate for the LGBT community, as her art revolves around the injustice the community faces. Coble has had fifteen solo performances/exhibitions, and has been in numerous group exhibitions. Coble received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2001. She then went on to receive her Master of Fine Arts from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. in 2004. Coble has taught and has had residencies at several schools and studios across the world. Mary Coble discovered her interest in making images late in her college years, after her first photography course. Starting with making art of things that frustrated her, and later evolving into making political art.
Some of Mary Coble's more notable performances have been about issues surrounding the LGBT community. One of Coble's first solo performances, Note to Self performed in New York in 2005, Coble collected 436 names of gay, lesbian, bi, and transgender individuals that died due to hate crimes; as there was no official documentation before. Coble had the names tattooed on her body, which took twelve hours, without ink creating an image of blood. Then each name was duplicated on a sheet of paper and the prints were hung on the wall. The use of inkless tattooing was to reference the brutality of the murders, many victims and slurs carved into their bodies.
One of her more recent performances, Deferral, performed and installed at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, dealt with FDA regulations banning men who have had sex with other men since 1977 from donating blood. Coble collected slogans for blood donation campaigns and printed them on separation screens you may see at a donation site, there was also an outlines superhero repeated on many screens around the installation. Over the course of four days, Coble worked with a group of gay men who altered the superhero images with red string, as to replace their unacceptable blood. Coble had blood drawn on site and then used it to paint the word deferral in Morse code on the screens. When asked in an interview with The Huffington Post about why she chose to do a performance on this topic, Coble responded that it is "...an interest in queer issues of social injustice threads throughout my work. The White House is across from The Corcoran as is the Red Cross-- and so everything just came together."
As most of Coble's performances involve causing herself harm/pain; creating a beautiful yet frightening visual confrontation with the issues at hand. "It is not about hurting myself. It's the only way I can think to express these ideas that my audience will have a strong enough connection to."
March 2004, “Asphyxiation of Genderfication: Blurring Boundaries” THE DIMOCK GALLERY; THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, Washington, DC
September 2005, “Note to Self”-Performance CONNER CONTEMPORARY ART, Washington, DC
November 2005, “Binding Ritual, Daily Routine”-Performance ARTISTS SPACE—PERFORMA 05, New York, NY, curated by Christian Rattemeyer
October 2006, “Marker (NYC)”-Performance D.U.M.B.O. UNDER THE BRIDGE FESTIVAL, Brooklyn, NY
April 2007, “GenderMask (becoming)”-Performance ELIZABETH A. SACKLER CENTER FOR FEMINIST ART, THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF ART, Brooklyn, NY
May 2007, “Aversion”-Performance, CONNER CONTEMPORARY ART, Washington, DC
August 2007, “Marker (DC)” SITE PROJECTS, WPA/C, Washington, DC
January 2008, “Aversion” GALERIE NINA MENOCAL, Mexico City, Mexico
February 2008, “Marker (Madrid)” ARCO INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR, Madrid, Spain
March 2008, “Blood Script” PULSE CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR, New York City, NY
May 2010, "Source", CONNER CONTEMPORARY ART, Washington, DC
March 2011 "Ascension/Immersion", CONNER CONTEMPORARY ART, Washington, DC, Coble/Riley Projects
June 2012, "Maneuvering", OVERGADEN INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, Copenhagen, DK
February 2012, "Watermarks", CONNERSMITH., Washington, DC, Coble/Riley Projects
August 2013, "Deferral", CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART, Washington, DC
May 2015, "Gestures of Defiance", VITA KUBEN, Umeå, Sweden
September 2015, "Still Deferred", THE CENTER OF ARTS AND EDUCATION, Umeå, Sweden
January 2015, "This is not a party", 13 FESTIVALEN FESTIVAL OF PERFORMANCE ART, KONSTEPIDEMIN, Gothenburg, Sweden
March 2004, “The Annual Awards Show” THE LUTHER W. BRADY GALLERY; THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, Washington, DC
August 2004, “Academy 2004” CONNER CONTEMPORARY ART, Washington, DC
December 2004, “The Staged Body-Contemporary Photography” CURATOR’S OFFICE, Washington, DC
August 2005, “Academy 2005” CONNER CONTEMPORARY ART, Washington, DC
October 2005, “Transformer: 2nd Annual Silent Benefit Auction” FUSEBOX, Washington, DC
February 2006, “Body Languages” KATZEN ARTS CENTER, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, Washington, DC
March 2006, “Me, Myself and I” CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER OF VIRGINIA, Virginia Beach, VA
May 2006, “Passion/Provocation: Photography and Video in the Collection of Teofilo Cohen,” PLAZA DE LA CIUDADELA 2, Mexico City, Mexico
November 2006, “Transformer: 3rd Annual Silent Benefit Auction” EDISON PLACE GALLERY, Washington, DC
March 2007, “Global Feminisms,” curated by Maura Reilly and Linda Nochlin, ELIZABETH A. SACKLER CENTER FOR FEMINIST ART, THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF ART, Brooklyn, NY
March 2007, “Radius 250”, ARTSPACE GALLERY, PLANT ZERO, Richmond Virginia
July 2007, “Sondheim Prize Semi-Finalist Group Show” DECKER AND MEYERHOFF GALLERY, MARYLAND INSTITUTE COLLEGE OF ART, Baltimore, MD
September 2007, “The Trawick Prize Group Show” CREATIVE PARTNERS GALLERY, Bethesda, MD
October 2007-October2008, “Currents: Recent Acquisitions” HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
February 2009, “Talk Dirty to Me” LARISSA GOLDSTON GALLERY, New York, NY
February 2009, “Note to Self” SCHROEDER ROMERO, New York, NY
November 2008, “Perspective” ANAID ART GALLERY, Bucharest, Romania
November 2008, “Gallery Artists: Recent Works” CONNER CONTEMPORARY ART, Washington, DC
October 2008, “Burning Down the House: Building a Feminist Art Collection” ELIZABETH A. SACKLER CENTER FOR FEMINIST ART, THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF ART, Brooklyn, NY
October 2008, “Uncommon Beauty” THE ELLIPSE ARTS CENTER, Arlington, VA
August 2008, “Picturing Politics 2008: Artists Speak to Power” ARLINGTON ARTS CENTER, Arlington, VA
May 2009, “Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive” NILOLAJ COPENHAGEN CENTER OF CONTEMPORARY ART, Copenhagen, Denmark
June 2009, "Experimental Video: Presented by the Rubell Family Collection and Conner Contemporary Art" CAPITOL SKYLINE, Washington, DC
September 2009, “Hall of Mirrors” NORTHLIGHT GALLERY, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY, Tempe, Arizona
January 2010, "Cream"-Washington Project for the Arts Auction,Curated by Kristen Hileman, Curator of Contemporary Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, KATZEN CENTER OF ART,AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, Washington, DC
February 2010, “Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive” BILDMUSEET UMEA, UNIVERSITY OF SWEDEN, Umea, Sweden
February 2010, "Market Estate Project", MARKET ESTATE, London, United Kingdom, Coble/Riley Projects
March 2010, "Synthetic Zero", THE BRONX ARTSPACE, Bronx, NY, Coble/Riley Projects
July 2010, "I Know What You Did Last Summer" SAINT CECILIA"S CONVENT, Brooklyn, Collaboration with Cooper Holoweski
September 2010, "SPARK: Festival of Music and Art, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, Minneapolis, MN, Coble/Riley Projects
November 2010, "Sweet Jesus", LEMP BREWERY, St. Louise MO
December 2010, "The Narcissism of Difference", DECKER AND MEYERHOFF GALLERY, MARYLAND INSTITUTE COLLEGE OF ART, Baltimore, MD
August 2011, "Slippery Slope", CAPITOL SKYLINE HOTEL, Washington, DC, Coble/Riley Projects
September 2011, "tilVALG!", RUM46, Åarhus, DK & TRYKTRYKTRYK, Copenhagen, DK
September 2011, "Asylum", ALT_CPH 11: ENCOUNTERS, FABRIKKEN FOR KUNST OG DESIGN, Copenhagen, DK
October 2011, "Surface Tension: The Future of Water", THE SCIENCE GALLERY, Dublin, Ireland
October 2011-September 2013, "re.act.feminism #2-a performing archive", Traveling to: Centro Cultural Montehermoso Kulturunea, Victoria Gasteiz, Spain; Instytut Sztuki Wyspa, Gdanske, Poland; Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde, Denmark; Tallinna Kunstihoone, Tallinn, Estonia; Fundacio Antoni Tapies, Barcelona, Spain, Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, Germany.
November 2011, "Fighting Cocks", Commitment Issues, Supported by FADO Performance Art Network, Toronto Canada
March 2012, "Moving Pictures", PS 122 GALLERY, New York City, New York, Coble/Riley Projects
June 2012, "Queering Sound", Presented by Sonic Circuits at ATLAS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, Washington, DC
June 2012, "Surface Tension: The Future of Water", EYEBEAM CENTER FOR ART AND TECHNOLOGY, NYC, New York
August 2012, "The Great Refusal: Taking on New Queer Aesthetics", SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO, Chicago, Illinois
September 2012, "Epidermiques: The Art of Tattoo", Presented by KRAFT, THE GARAGE, Bethune, France
October 2012, ""Surface Tension: The Future of Water", THE MUSEUM, Ontario CA
October 2012, "Crackbags and Lighters" included in the "International Photography Triennial", Presented by the MUSEET FOR FOTOKUNST, Odense, DK
March 2013, "Epidermiques #2: Art & Tattoo", Presented by KRAFT, MAISON FOLIE WAZEMMES, Lille, France
October 2013, "Queer Objectivity", THE STAMP GALLERY, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, Baltimore, MD
October 2013,""Surface Tension: The Future of Water", THE MUSEUM, Ontario, CA
March 2014, "Swim" shown as part of Art Cinema, HABITAT, Odense, DK
March 2014, "Shame: an evening of performances", KNIPSU, Bergen, NO
May 2014, "PROJEKT/SHAME: An Evening of Performances", OVERGADEN INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, Copenhagen, DK
June 2014, "En Konstig utstallning" West Pride LGBTQ Festival, Gothenburg, SE
October 2014, "Straight Ahead" shown as part of Art Cinema, HABITAT, Odense, DK
June 2015, "Exchange: Your Art, Your Space", VISUAL CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, Carlow, Ireland
June 2015, “Homosexuality_ies”, THE SCHWULES MUSEUM* and THE DEURSCHES HISTORISCHES MUSEUM, Berlin, Germany
