Posts tagged as:

Carrie Mae Weems

Girl Power Is Back: Top 10 Shows For Women In 2016

by Emily Colucci on December 21, 2016
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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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With Art As My Witness: Carrie Mae Weems at Jack Shainman Gallery

by Emily Colucci on November 23, 2016
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I often hear the platitude that art thrives when artists are forced into action by life or death necessity. But, what might this new politically engaged art actually do to combat racism, xenophobia, misogyny and a host of other threats that have already appeared well before Trump’s inauguration?

Carrie Mae Weems’s two current exhibitions, on view at both Jack Shainman galleries, seem to offer an answer: art can act as a witness. In the dual shows, Weems shines a light on violence, institutional silence, judicial ignorance and black underrepresentation. This is seen most vividly her gut-wrenching take on the killings of unarmed black men and women by police in the 24th street space. Not all the pieces in Weems’s shows force viewers to witness these crimes, but those that do drag these issues into view for a Chelsea art audience, rendering a passive and apolitical viewing experience almost impossible.

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Black Is and Black Ain’t in Pace Gallery’s “Blackness in Abstraction”

by Emily Colucci on August 18, 2016
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“Black is and black ain’t.” Walking through Pace Gallery’s current exhibition Blackness in Abstraction, I began to think about that title line from Marlon Riggs’s final film—taken from the prologue of Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man. Even more than the pervasive “Black is beautiful,” this curiously ambiguous phrase hints at the multitude of meanings, voices, and questions surrounding blackness in the exhibition.

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We Went to No Man’s Land: Women Artists from The Rubell Family Collection

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on December 21, 2015
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At the Rubell Family Collection, dozens of contemporary women artists working in every conceivable medium left us very impressed.

Michael: Here, the blue-chip market and a private collector managed to accomplish something many institutions or independent curators haven’t—presenting an all-female show that feels as if it has nothing to prove.

Paddy: I still can’t get over how many monumental art works in this show so effectively dominated the space that you’d literally feel awestruck by their presence.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Good Reasons To Put Pants On

by Whitney Kimball on January 12, 2015
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For those of us who didn’t get out much last year, we get to head to the White Columns Annual for the last round-up of everything we should’ve seen. Also in significant artworks from 2014: Godard’s 3D film “Goodbye to Language” is screening at BAM. Do not miss out. You can not pirate this on the Internet.
These, and more art events worth braving the cold.

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This Week’s Must-See Art Events: Stereotypical Zinesters

by Corinna Kirsch and Whitney Kimball on April 21, 2014
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Dodging banality.

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