by Emily Colucci on December 21, 2016
Despite the misogynistic horror of Donald Trump’s campaign and eventual election victory, 2016 was a great year for women in the art. There were compelling solo exhibitions by women artists in major institutions, a copious list of all-women group shows and dynamic revivals of unfairly overlooked female artists’ careers. It seems like 2016 marked the return of much-needed 1990’s-style “girl power.”
Granted, there’s still a long way to go for equal representation, particularly for women artists of color. But, hopefully, this is just the beginning. To celebrate this year’s exciting and timely return to feminism, I selected the ten best shows featuring women in 2016. Results below:
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by Emily Colucci on November 21, 2016
A week after the election, women’s bodies are a battleground yet again. Donald Trump hinted at overturning Roe v. Wade on 60 Minutes and Paul Ryan thought birth control was a “nitty-gritty detail” of the dismantlement of the Affordable Care Act. This isn’t even taking into consideration the pussy-grabbing rhetoric of the campaign. With President-elect Trump and a Republican majority in Congress, women–like many diverse populations–feel newly under siege.
This danger to women’s health and civil liberties inadvertently breathes new life into art that engages with the female body and its subjugation. While using the body, in the recent past, may have felt like Feminism 101, art now needs to reflect and reject this patriarchal threat. Feminist art stalwart Carolee Schneemann achieves just that in her dual exhibitions Further Evidence–Exhibit A at PPOW Gallery and Further Evidence–Exhibit B at Galerie Lelong. In these dual shows, Schneemann depicts the female body as contested, controlled and imprisoned. And it couldn’t feel more timely.
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