Women in the Arts Winter/Spring 2018

Winter/Spring 2018

CHAMPION WOMEN THROUGH THE ARTS dear members and friends, In honor of the museum’s thirtieth anniversary year, we have updated the design of Women in the Arts magazine. The last time we made this kind of change was during our twentieth anniversary, so we have spruced it up a bit with a fresh look that maintains our classy profile. We are especially grateful to Mildred Weissman for generously supporting this effort, which includes advertising and outreach that is bringing new audiences to the museum.

In this issue, you will read about the wonderful exhibitions we have planned this spring. Women House features more than thirty women artists from around the world whose work addresses ideas about women and the home. The works demonstrate the artists’ views on the positive and negative sides of domesticity. Hung Liu In Print displays art by the Chinese American painter and printmaker, who creates layered, evocative works.

We have much to be grateful for and much to look forward to this spring. The museum continues to flourish, and we will enjoy sharing and celebrating our successes at our annual Spring Gala together with you. Thank you for your continued support.

warmest best wishes,

Wilhelmina Cole Holladay Chair of the Board

MUSEUM INFORMATION

WOMEN IN THE ARTS

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Winter/Spring 2018 Volume 36, no. 1

PUBLIC TRANSIT

Women in the Arts is a publication of the National Museum of Women in the Arts®

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Emily Haight

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On the cover: Laure Tixier, Plaid House (Hutte) (Plaid House (Hut)), 2008; Felt, 59 x 59 in. diameter; Collection Mudam Luxembourg, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean Founder’s photo: © Michele Mattei

Contents

“Is the ‘woman-house’ a refuge or a prison, or can it become a space for creativity?”

PAGE 8

24

El Tendedero/The Clothesline Project

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FEATURES

↑8

Women House

Through provocative photographs, videos, sculptures, and room-like installations, thirty-six global artists examine and upend stereotypes about women and the home. camille morineau and lucia pesapane

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Hung Liu In Print

Liu develops multi-layered print surfaces that feature veils of color and screens of drip marks. orin zahra

Through the Women, Arts, and Social Change initiative, Mónica Mayer staged a participatory installation and Fresh Talk Forum addressing gender-based violence. alicia gregory ↑ 26

Hard to Define: Artists’ Books from the Collection

Through incredibly varied forms, artists’ books on view are, by turns, magical, strange, awe-inspiring, or humorous. sarah osborne bender

// DEPARTMENTS

2 Arts News 4 Culture Watch 6 Education Report 7 Dedicated Donors: Sue J. Henry and Carter G. Phillips 14 Recent Acquisitions: Yael Bartana 16 Calendar 29 Museum News and Events 32 Supporting Roles 33 Museum Shop

Arts News 2

Now Be Here #4, DC/MD/VA On October 25, 2017, 465 female-identifying contemporary artists gathered at NMWA for a group photograph—the fourth and final U.S. iteration of Now Be Here, a project to increase visibility and connections for women artists and their communities. The event was staged in partnership with Los Angelesbased artist Kim Schoenstadt, who organized previous Now Be Here photographs in L.A., New York, and Miami, and co-organized by D.C.-based artist Linn Meyers. The historic photograph was taken by D.C. photographer Kim Johnson.

The artists worked with NMWA’s Public Programs Department to organize the

“Thrilled to be a part of this photo alongside so many female artists in D.C. who I admire. It was a powerful night of creative connections.” @wendysittner on Instagram

photograph along with complementary communityfocused programming. An artist resource fair at the museum directly after the photograph welcomed representatives from twenty-one local arts organizations. In addition, museums and organizations across

the region joined together to stage Now Let’s Talk, a dynamic schedule of lectures, films, discussions, and artist talks.

Through eighteen events during October in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, programs highlighted women artists.

School for American Craftsmen at Alfred University in 1950.

Woodman shifted her focus from strictly functional pieces to beautiful decorative vessels, and later to more radical ceramic sculptures that defied easy categorization. Whether working with

In Memoriam Betty Woodman, a pioneering ceramic sculptor with a career spanning roughly seventy years, died at the age of eighty-seven on January 2, 2018. Woodman gained renown as a visionary artist in the field of fine art ceramics in the 1960s.

Woodman worked in ceramics beginning in high school and pushed the medium’s boundaries after graduating from the

Betty Woodman

IMAGE COURTESY OF SALON 94

WINTER / SPRING 2018

Now Be Here #4, DC/MD/VA; Photo by Kim Johnson; Courtesy of Kim Schoenstadt, Linn Meyers, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts

Lubaina Himid, 2017; Image courtesy of the artist and Hollybush Gardens

Sexism Takes Center Stage Recent news places gender inequity in Hollywood into sharper focus. San Diego State University’s “Celluloid Ceiling” report found that of the top 250 films of 2017, 88% had no women directors, 83% had no women writers, and 96% had no women cinematographers.

The study found that there has been little change in the gender wage gap in Hollywood

since the late 1990s. In the wake of widespread reports of sexual assault and harassment, some of Hollywood’s most powerful women teamed up to launch Time’s Up, an initiative aimed at combating sexual harassment inside and outside of the industry.

Although Hollywood is far from gender parity, women in film celebrated a few key successes in 2017. For the first time since 1958, the top three highest-grossing films of the year starred women, and Mudbound’s Rachel Morrison became the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for cinematography.

Topping Turner Painter and sculptor Lubaina Himid became the first woman of color to win the Turner Prize since it was established in 1984. Born in what was then

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PHOTO BY EDMUND BLOK FOR MODERN ART OXFORD

clay, textiles, or paint, Woodman reinterpreted and transformed disparate motifs from Greek, Etruscan, European, and Asian cultures, creating playful works of art unified by an expressive color palette.

Although she had solo exhibitions in the 1970s, it was not until 2006 when she made history as the first living woman artist to have a retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Zanzibar and based in northern England, Himid, at age sixtythree, is also the oldest artist to receive the award. Previously, only artists under the age of fifty were eligible. Himid’s work examines the histories and lasting effects of colonialism and slavery.

Sold! To Systemic Bias A recent study from the University of Luxembourg reveals art auction participants

value art by women less.

Through an analysis of 1.5 million auction sales records and experiments with thousands of respondents, researchers found that respondents consistently ranked works they believed to have been made by male artists higher than those believed to be by women artists.

Smithsonian Women’s Committee

Champion women through the arts with NMWA membership

SmithsonianCraftShow.org National Building Museum Washington, DC

WO M E N I N T H E A RTS

APRIL 26–29

Wiwat Kamolpornwijit

JOIN US!

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EXHIBITIONS

CALIFORNIA

WASHINGTON, D.C.

MUSE: Mickalene Thomas Photographs and Tête-à-Tête

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings

Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont Through May 13, 2018

Some 115 photographs by Mann, many that have not been exhibited previously, reveal the influence of the South on her figure studies, still lifes, and landscape photography. // Joan Jonas, They Come to Us without a Word II, Performance at Teatro Piccolo Arsenale, Venice, Italy, 2015; On view at the Tate Modern

United Kingdom

© MICK ALENE THOMAS; COURTESY THE ARTIST; LEHMANN MAUPIN, NEW YORK AND HONG KONG; AND ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK

Drawing inspiration from Manet, 1970s actresses, and her own experiences, Thomas explores beauty and community through her portraits. Tête-à-tête similarly emphasizes community through Thomas’s curated installation of others’ art.

National Gallery of Art March 4–May 28, 2018

// Mickalene Thomas, La leçon d’amour, 2008; On view at the Pomona College Museum of Art

WINTER/SPRING 2018

California

COLORADO

GEORGIA

Dara Friedman: Mother Drum

Carrie Mae Weems: Sea Islands Series, 1991–1992

Aspen Art Museum Through May 13, 2018

Telfair Museums, Savannah Through May 6, 2018

Friedman’s video installation, filmed in collaboration with the Swinomish Reservation, Coeur d’Alene Reservation, and Crow Agency Reservation, captures the power of communal acts and visibility of indigenous histories. RM

Weems chronicles the culture of the Gullah people on the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, where they remain deeply connected to their African roots. RM

ILLINOIS

MISSOURI

Howardena Pindell: What Remains To Be Seen

Mona Hatoum: Terra Infirma

MCA Chicago February 24–May 20, 2018 Multidisciplinary artist Pindell defies tradition by using her own formal language and materials such as glitter and perfume. Her work is deeply personal while addressing broad social issues.

KENTUCKY

Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism Speed Art Museum, Louisville Through May 13, 2018 This exhibition features thirtyseven women Impressionists, including Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Lilla Cabot Perry, Paula Modersohn-Becker, and Anna Ancher, who destabilized a tradition that generally disregarded women. □ RM // Howardena Pindell, Untitled #20 (Dutch Wives Circled and Squared) (detail), 1978; On view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

llinois

Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis April 6–August 11, 2018 Hatoum addresses the volatility of a globalized world in more than thirty installations and sculptures. Inspired by contradictions, Hatoum creates works that illicit conflicting emotions.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Jane Peterson: At Home and Abroad Columbia Museum of Art May 13–July 22, 2018 Peterson’s Impressionist, realist, and abstract work demonstrates the dynamism of early twentieth-century art. This exhibition brings together works from her travels in America, Europe, and Africa. □ RM COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND GARTH GREENAN GALLERY, NEW YORK.

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PHOTO BY MOIRA RICCI; © 2017 JOAN JONAS; ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK, DACS, LONDON.

Culture Watch

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BOOKS

International

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UNITED KINGDOM

Joan Jonas

IMAGE COURTESY OF DOYLE NEW YORK.

A pioneer of performance art and film over the last five decades, Jonas uses complex methods of storytelling to address topics such as climate change and extinction.

// Jane Peterson, The Accused and Her Dog (Woman with Umbrella), n.d.; On view at the Columbia Museum of Art

South Carolina

GERMANY

Gabriele Münter: Painting to the Point Lenbachhaus Kunstbau, Munich Through April 8, 2018 Münter was a founding member of Der Blaue Reiter and pioneer of early twentieth-century Expressionism. This exhibition presents work from all phases of her career. □

Where the Past Begins

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Farewell to the Muse

Ever since the overwhelming success of her first novel, The Joy Luck Club (1989), Amy Tan has risen to legendary status— particularly in the genre of Chinese American storytelling.

In Where the Past Begins (Harper Collins, 2017), Tan reconciles childhood trauma, unrealistic parental expectations, and newfound family secrets through a patchwork of journal entries, personal essays, and other musings. With timely clarity, Tan contemplates how her immigrant parents would have reacted to the 2016 election: Would her father, a minister, have voted for the pro-life Republican candidate? Or would her mother, a domestic violence survivor, have convinced him otherwise?

Where the Past Begins is an earnest, wistful amalgam of memory and imagination. Tan’s discussions of her tumultuous relationship with her mentally ill mother often coincide with her evolution as a writer—her early fixation on nuance of language and her lasting appreciation for the aesthetics of communication. Tan not only offers an unflinching look at her youth, but also guides the audience, by hand, through her train of thought.

“I feel like I lost a game I didn’t know I was playing,” says Jojo, a thirteen-year-old African American boy struggling with family, history, race, and poverty in Jesmyn Ward’s National Book Award-winning novel Sing, Unburied, Sing (Scribner, 2017). Set in the author’s rural Mississippi hometown, this family epic follows Jojo, his baby sister, and his drug-addicted mother as they drive to pick up his white father from prison.

Offering a poignant commentary on U.S. history, Ward’s novel explores past evils through the inclusion of ghosts connected to Jojo’s family. Ward’s characters try to find solace in a world entrenched with racism and violence, only to be reminded “this the kind of world . . . that makes fools of the living and saints of them once they dead. And devils them throughout.” Ward previously won the National Book Award in 2011 for her novel Salvage the Bones—making her the first woman to win the award for fiction twice.

In Farewell to the Muse: Love, War, and the Women of Surrealism (Thames & Hudson, 2017), Whitney Chadwick focuses on the period before and during World War II, exploring “what it meant to be young, ambitious, and female” in the face of the era’s hardships as well as marginalization by the Surrealist movement’s renowned male figures. Each chapter sketches a distinct relationship—some lovers, some life partners, some friends—between women who persevered in their art forms.

Leonor Fini shared friendship and artistic inspiration with Leonora Carrington; Claude Cahun and Suzanne Malherbe were life partners and activists; Frida Kahlo and Jacqueline Lamba Breton bonded over their affection and desire for one another, commitment to art, and tumultuous independent personal lives. Surrealist poet Valentine Penrose’s intense romance with Alice Rahon Paalen is profiled in the book, as is her camaraderie with photographer Lee Miller, her ex-husband’s second wife.

Chadwick concludes, of these varied and complex women, “None believed that life as a muse trumped life as an artist.”

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RM North American Reciprocal Museum

benefits for NMWA members at the Friend level and above □ See works from NMWA’s collection

ILAYDA ORANKOY

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EMILY HAIGHT

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ELIZABETH LYNCH

WO M E N I N T H E A RTS

Tate Modern March 14–August 5, 2018

Education Report 6

part of the Artists in Conversation series, welcomed D.C.-based artist Sylvia Snowden and Baltimore native Shinique Smith, who spoke about their works to a full house. The second, a lunchtime talk with Maren Hassinger, director of the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art, incorporated a collaborative art-making experience and celebrated the final weekend of the exhibition.

Firsthand Experience workshops asked participants to investigate tenets of visual abstraction—spontaneity, developing an individual voice, reserving judgment, and expressing emotion—and translate them to theatrical improvisation and responsive poetry.

In a first-time partnership with Washington Improv Theater, NMWA hosted a free Improv for All! class to an energetic, soldout audience. When asked what they learned, participants responded, “To take chances” and “To be myself and roll with it!”

Maren Hassinger (center) led a newspaper-twisting art activity to teach attendees the technique she used to create Wrenching News (2008)

EMILY HAIGHT, NMWA

WINTER/SPRING 2018

Extending a Conversation Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today celebrated conversations among twenty-one black women abstract artists across generations, approaches, and mediums. Throughout the exhibition galleries, artworks complemented and challenged one another, diversifying a canon historically dominated by white male artists.

The Education Department’s exhibition-related offerings— See for Yourself self-guide packets focusing on abstract and local artists; an audio guide highlighting ten of the featured artists’ voices; teacher professional development; artist talks; and multigenerational hands-on workshops—extended those conversations within and outside of the museum’s walls.

These offerings introduced audiences to underappreciated art and to the potency and potential of abstraction.

NMWA hosted two Magnetic Fields artist talks. The first,

EMILY HAIGHT, NMWA

EMILY HAIGHT, NMWA

Shinique Smith (far left) and Sylvia Snowden (left) visited the museum to speak about their work on view in Magnetic Fields

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RESPONSIVE POETRY

Poet and workshop instructor Danielle Badra wrote “Wake” in response to Brenna Youngblood’s painting Forecast (2014).

Wake Blood oil washed across the turquoise water a river an artery an open artery that was once a wide river which still harbors life like algae or teardrops which settle on the surface send ripples send sadness send salt water send hope that someone is still grieving perhaps it is the clouds who could not contain their loss who tremble who wake

During a responsive poetry workshop, participants spent time quietly contemplating works in the exhibition, crafting poetic responses to their favorites, and sharing their compositions with the group.

Extending a Partnership For the second consecutive school year, NMWA educators partnered with Brent Elementary School, a museum magnet D.C. Public School, on an arts integration project.

Through this partnership, sixty second-graders enjoyed a free field experience at the museum and learned about character development by studying and creating portraits.

Over the course of three weeks, museum educators visited classrooms to provide a pre-trip introduction, toured students through the museum’s collection, and spent three consecutive days at Brent helping students make portraits depicting characters of their own creation. Following NMWA’s visits, the students wrote realistic fiction stories about their characters to culminate this visual art and language arts unit.

In a handwritten note, a student said, “Thank you for showing me NMWA. I learned that women are able to do as much as boys. My favorite part is the portraits. They inspire me.”

Dedicated Donor

SUE HENRY DISCOVERED THE

National Museum of Women in the Arts by chance. She was walking in downtown D.C. about eighteen years ago and happened to pass by on the street when the museum’s signage caught her attention. She had not previously known about NMWA, but, she says, “I immediately thought, I need to go inside!” When she entered the building, she was impressed with what she saw: “The museum is such an oasis.” She loved the museum’s building, a preserved historic structure that played a significant role in revitalizing the surrounding neighborhood, and even more, she identified with its mission.

Starting immediately from that first visit, she and her husband, Carter Phillips, became donors and grew more and more involved over time. The couple met in law school at

“It’s so exciting to be able to point to something specific that we’ve been able to help bring to the museum.”

Northwestern University, at a time when, Henry describes, women comprised 16% of her law school class. “We were a minority. We had heard stories about Sandra Day O’Connor, who was told early on that she could be a secretary but nothing else, and we were aware that we were moving into new territory.” Henry has always been an advocate for women, and she was excited to discover more about women in the arts through her involvement with the museum.

“I was motivated by the focus on women artists. The more I learned about the museum— why it was founded and the need for it—I became an even stronger advocate, because it does so much for women.”

Henry, a member of the NMWA Advisory Board (NAB) and Director’s Circle, credits the museum with expanding her knowledge of art and enriching her life through art, travel, and social connections.

She says, “The women I’ve come in contact with through this museum are a real treasure in my life. The other NAB members, the trustees, and the staff—they’re so kind and helpful, but they’re also challenging and thoughtful and probing.”

She also has found ways to integrate the museum into the rest of her life and introduce NMWA to friends.

Several years ago, she hosted a table for ten at the annual Spring Gala. “I invited four of my friends who are female attorneys, and then I invited my daughter, and four of her friends who are female attorneys.” The group talked about legal careers as well as cultivating life and interests outside the law, such as supporting the arts. Between networking and enjoying the museum gala, Henry says, “We had a fabulous time that night.”

In honor of NMWA’s 30th anniversary, the couple has made a major gift to establish the Sue J. Henry and Carter G. Phillips Exhibition Fund, which has bolstered the museum’s programs over the last year.

In directing the gift, Henry describes, they spoke with Director Susan Fisher Sterling to learn what would most benefit the organization. “We’ve been thrilled with the way it turned out. It’s so exciting to be able to point to something specific that we’ve been able to help bring to the museum.”

NMWA Founder Wilhelmina Cole Holladay says, “We are grateful that Sue Henry and Carter Phillips’s special gift has helped us bring topquality and timely exhibitions to our visitors during our 30thanniversary year.”

WO M E N I N T H E A RTS

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SUE J. HENRY AND CARTER G. PHILLIPS

YASSINE EL MANSOURI

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Laurie Simmons, Walking House, 1989; Chromogenic print, 64 x 46 in.; Collection of Dr. Dana Beth Ardi

WO M E N H OU S E

marcH 9 –maY 28, 2018

Camille Morineau

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND SALON 94, NEW YORK

and Lucia Pesapane

The house of women: prison, refuge, or creative space?¹

Two notions intersect in Women House: a gender (woman) and a space (the domestic sphere).

Architecture and public space have traditionally been male preserves, whereas domestic space has been that of women; as the exhibition demonstrates, however, this does not need to be the case. Is the “woman-house” a refuge or a prison, or can it become a space for creativity?

© THE EASTON FOUNDATION/LICENSED BY VAGA, NEW YORK, NY; PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER BURKE

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the artists in the exhibition engage with this complex subject and, in doing so, resituate women at the center of a history of art and architecture that has negated or victimized them. Their works challenge conventional notions widely considered as self-evident, highlighting the extent to which they are theoretical and political constructs. Can domestic space, instead of merely being a place assigned to women, be a space in which the female body can assume predominance?

WINTER/SPRING 2018

Women have not hesitated to work on a large scale and to transform private issues into public ones.

And what if public space and architecture, instead of being “neutral,” benevolent locales, express the way women have been erased from history? The space that houses us, provides us with shelter, and gives us room to move around is also a place that generates stereotypes that at worst beat us down and at best restrict our freedom. And this “us” is neutral

and inclusive: it includes both men and women, imprisoned in equal measure in their gender roles, both inside and outside the home, in both written texts and social behavior.

Challenging or demolishing these stereotypes has been the privileged domain of women artists, who are the ones primarily affected by the strictures they impose. Women have not hesitated to work on a large scale and to transform private issues into public ones. At a certain point, action becomes necessary: this is what Niki de Saint Phalle discovered when, as a child in the late 1930s, she became aware of the gendered polarization of domestic and public space: “As a child, I couldn’t identify with my mother, my grandmother, my aunts, or my mother’s friends: a small, rather unhappy bunch. Our house was stifling: an enclosed space with little freedom or privacy. . .

[I decided] I would go beyond those boundaries to reach the world of men, which I saw as adventurous, mysterious, and exciting.”² Saint Phalle’s entire career and body of work can be summarized as the construction of a space that is both imagined and real, in which women can assume power, live in a “house” that benevolently accommodates their bodies and minds,

Right: Niki de Saint Phalle, Maman Nana, 1969; Felt-tip pen, colored pencil, and pencil on paper, 21 ¼ x 17 ¾ in.; Private collection

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and Miriam Schapiro in 1972 in Los Angeles, coincided with the pioneering article by feminist historian Linda Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” The year before Womanhouse, in 1971, Ana Vieira began working on her Ambiente (Environments), representations of a dematerialized bourgeois interior that were both two-dimensional (printed on cotton fabric) and three-dimensional (the pieces of fabric were assembled to form walls). Just one year after the show, in 1973, Nil Yalter built her “nomad’s tent,” a work emblematic of these crucial years when art history was starting to be rewritten.

Although the groundbreaking installation Womanhouse was destroyed, the documentary film on the subject made

by Johanna Demetrakas in 1974 allowed both the exhibition and the film to inspire new generations of artists. Sheila Pepe, whose Mr. Slit (2005) is on view in the current exhibition, has drawn significant inspiration from Faith Wilding’s Womb Room, which was featured in Womanhouse.

The house of memory In the twenty-five years following Womanhouse in Los Angeles, artists’ subject matter became more diverse, in many cases reflecting the social changes stimulated by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Some artists now tried to preserve the ghost or the imprint of a world lost without a trace. In 1993, Rachel Whiteread became the first woman artist to win the Turner Prize after creating a new artistic form: a full-scale imprint of a building that was effectively a space in reverse. House was a concrete cast of the interior of a Victorian house in London that was scheduled for

WO M E N I N T H E A RTS

Birgit Jürgenssen, Ich möchte hier raus! (I Want to Get Out of Here!), 1976/2006; Black-and-white photograph, 22 ⅞ x 18 ⅞ in.; Estate of Birgit Jürgenssen, Courtesy of Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna

© 2018 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK/BILDRECHT, VIENNA

and pass on their history without distorting it. All her writings, interviews, and sculptural and architectural works rise to the same challenge: that of transforming a stifled, silent housewife into a Nana-Maison, a “Girl-House” that is at once triumphant and welcoming.

The works in this exhibition demonstrate the widely varied approaches of women artists in the twentieth century, encompassing Saint Phalle’s series of Nanas-Maisons and a similar project Louise Bourgeois began working on in the 1940s: her series of femmes-maisons. So there is nothing “feminine” about the work of women artists, except their more or less direct assaults on the notion of “femininity,” especially its “domestic” dimension. Neither is there anything “essentialist” in their exploration of the domestic and the architectural. It was no accident that Bourgeois and Saint Phalle devoted so much of their work to the “woman-house,” and yet the more one grappled with the subject, the more it would assume different and sometimes contradictory forms.

These early revisions of the house also saw the development of a theoretical framework, driven by a process where theorists, activists, and novelists worked in parallel with artists.

When Claude Cahun was challenging gender norms with her masculine self-portraits and testing domesticity by placing her body inside pieces of furniture, the challenge of finding a workspace was being theorized by Virginia Woolf, who, in her 1929 essay A Room of One’s Own, encouraged women to set aside a place where they might shut themselves away undisturbed.

The 1970s brought further artworks and written texts: the installation Womanhouse, jointly organized by Judy Chicago

© 2018 NIKI CHARITABLE ART FOUNDATION ; ALL RIGHTS RESERVED/ARS, NY/ADAGP, PARIS

Opposite: Louise Bourgeois, Femme Maison, 1994; Marble, 5 x 12 ½ x 2 ¾ in.; Collection of Louise Bourgeois Trust

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demolition. Similarly, Whiteread’s cast sculptures of everyday objects—including window blinds and an air mattress on view in Women House—make haunting references to home.

These works convey a sense of nostalgia brought on by an absence, either of a body or a place.

Artists have extended the house by examining questions of nomadism and exile.

Another generation of women artists has written the history of countries often torn apart, of the unstable world of the late twentieth century where notions of home, homeland, family, and gender roles can no longer be defined. Mona Hatoum arrived in London in the mid-1970s because of the war in Lebanon; in the 1990s, her work on the body turned toward nightmarish depictions of domestic environments where everyday activities can be dangerous.

The memory of Mexican popular culture is embodied in an installation of secondhand textiles by Pia Camil, whose work also explores the difficulty of reconciling personal and professional space. The twenty-first century has ushered in another type of Nana-Maison that calls for reconciliation and offers a means of protection. Zanele Muholi’s photographs

WINTER/SPRING 2018

Nil Yalter, Topak Ev, 1973; Metal structure, felt, lambskin, leather, text, and mixed media, 98 x 118 in. diameter; Vehbi Koç Foundation Contemporary Art Collection

depicting the LGBT community in South Africa, whose members suffer violent attacks every day, provide documentary evidence, form the future archives of a population in danger, and testify to the existence of a peaceful space where women can love one another.

From body-house to world-house The selection of artworks in Women House shows how the house has become a space where, according to feminist writer Marguerite Duras, artists have been able to create objects “as yet unknown to them, as yet undecided by them, and never decided by anyone else.” Women artists have turned the house inside out, making its intimacy political and turning private space into public space. In various cultural contexts, different generations of artists have extended the house into a “body-house,” a “homeland-house,” and even a “world-house” by examining questions of nomadism and exile. Women House reflects a history in which the creative woman defines herself, in a kind of solitude that is both extreme and necessary for creativity.

Camille Morineau is the director of exhibitions and collections and Lucia Pesapane is the exhibition curator at La Monnaie de Paris.

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Notes: 1. This essay is adapted from “From the Housewife to the Nana-Maison: Domesticity as a Key Theme for Women Artists,” the introductory essay from the catalogue Women House (Manuella Editions, 2017), published in conjunction with the exhibition.

2. Niki de Saint Phalle, Une autobiographie, Remembering 1930-1949, Lausanne, Acatos, 1999.

Zanele Muholi, Katlego Mashiloane and Nosipho Lavuta, ext.2, Lakeside, Johannesburg, 2007; Lambda print, 30 ⅛ x 29 ¾ in.; Private collection

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ON VIEW ONLY AT NMWA

© LAURE TIXIER

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// Women House is organized by La Monnaie de Paris. Its presentation at NMWA is made possible by GRoW @ Annenberg and Denise Littlefield Sobel. Additional funding is provided by the Sue J. Henry and Carter G. Phillips Exhibition Fund, Belinda de Gaudemar, the Estate of Sara D. Toney, Mahinder and Sharad Tak, and Étant Donnés Contemporary Art, a program of FACE Foundation. Étant Donnés is developed in partnership with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States, with lead funding from the Florence Gould Foundation, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, the French Ministry of Culture, and Institut Français-Paris. NMWA also thanks Regina Weingarten for her special contributions.

Further support for Women House at NMWA is provided by American Airlines, the official airline of the museum’s 30th Anniversary.

Women House features several works from NMWA’s collection.

Just as the shutters covering each room invite or block out view-

Nine works from Laure Tixier’s series Plaid Houses (Maquettes)

ers, women, too, control public perceptions of their lives. Judy

(2005–11) explore domestic architecture from worldwide cultures

Chicago’s Butterfly test plates (1973–74) combine china painting,

in solid-colored felt sculptures that resemble miniature residential

traditionally disregarded as “craft,” with abstracted butterfly

homes, tents, towers, or high-rise buildings. Kirsten Justesen’s

and female anatomical forms, symbolizing women’s struggle

Portræt i arkiv med samling (Portrait in Cabinet with Collection)

for liberation. Mona Hatoum’s Home (1999) arranges electrified

(2013) investigates the relationship between body and space

kitchen appliances behind a barrier that separates the viewer

through a self-portrait photograph. Tucking herself into the shelf

from a potentially lethal current, using dark humor to shatter the

of a wardrobe, she appears to be on display alongside household

notion of the “home” as a wholesome, safe environment.

objects and novelty items.

Several works are presented exclusively at NMWA. Miriam Schapiro’s Dollhouse (1972), also exhibited in the original Womanhouse, serves as a powerful metaphor for the lives of women.

Laure Tixier, Plaid Houses (Maquettes): Blue Japan House, Blue Art Deco House, Red Deconstructivist House, White Hut, Acid Green Dome House, Brown Usha Hut, Pink Tower, Turquoise Blue Colonial House (Barbados), Orange Breton House, 2005–11; Wool, felt, and thread, dimensions variable; NMWA, Gift of Les Amis du NMWA, Paris, France

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Home Is Where the Art Is

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RECENT ACQUISITIONS

Yael Bartana What if Women Ruled the World, 2016 Kathryn Wat In spring 2017, a major gift from collector and NMWA supporter Belinda de Gaudemar—along with support from the Members’ Acquisition Fund—enabled the museum to purchase a striking neon sculpture by Yael Bartana (b. 1970, Kfar Yehezkel, Israel).

Bartana’s art explores the politics of memory and history.

In 2011, she represented Poland at the Venice Biennale with And Europe Will Be Stunned, her three-part film about the history of Polish-Jewish relations and its impact on contemporary Polish identity. More recent works by the artist, including her expansive performance-film project What if Women Ruled the World?, envisage the future and women’s place in it.

The What if… project is inspired by the closing minutes of Stanley Kubrick’s satirical film Dr. Strangelove (1964), which suggested that women should outnumber men by a ratio of 10:1 in order to repopulate a U.S. destroyed by nuclear holocaust.

Bartana dramatically inverts Kubrick’s scenario, rejecting the idea that women are most valuable for their reproductive capacities. Instead, she gathers female scientists, artists, activ-

WINTER/SPRING 2018

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ists, and thinkers in theatrical performances during which they seek solutions to humanity’s most urgent problems, including nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and human rights abuses. In 2017, the work was performed at the Manchester International Festival and European Capital of Culture Aarhus. Bartana is currently working on a related film.

The artist creates neon text sculptures as accompaniments to her films and performance pieces. The columnar arrangement of words in the neon What if… forms a totemic shape; the work stands as a silent distillation of the complex themes and activities embodied in the project’s performances.

Belinda de Gaudemar approached the museum’s curatorial staff after seeing Bartana’s sculpture at Art Basel in Switzerland in June 2016. “I first saw the work at a time when it seemed plausible that the U.S. would elect its first female President,” she recalls. “The question raised

by Bartana’s work is really ‘If women were making policy, how would the world be different?’

I think that no matter what side of the political spectrum you are on, it’s not unreasonable to ask if the world might be a better place with more women in charge.”

Nearly ten feet high when installed, Bartana’s sculpture resonates powerfully with current public discourse. The context in which the work is installed can also impact its interpretation. In summer 2017, Selfridges department store in London installed the What if... neon in one of the store’s windows, a space typically reserved for high-end designer

Instagram photos by @perfecttenhudson (left) and @tlohwater (below left) enjoying NMWA’s galleries

Follow NMWA @WomenInTheArts on social media!

“Thanks for putting up in lights what many of us wonder, #yaelbartana” @travel_with_a_book

“What a world it would be.” @jaaade12

goods. Instead of enticing shoppers, the sculpture provoked curiosity and discussion among passersby.

At NMWA, Bartana’s neon is installed at the entrance to the museum’s collection galleries, an ideal placement in de Gaudemar’s estimation: “When the elevator doors open, you are drawn out by an eerie fluorescent glow and then—wham!— you’re hit with this provocative question. It’s a wonderful visual point of entry to a museum dedicated to the creative contributions of women over the centuries.”

Beginning in the 1980s, artists such as Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger used wordbased art to explore issues of gender identity. Bartana’s neon enfolds those ideas but also expands them, emphasizing individuals’ responsibility to a broader collective and the world at large.¹ Until the 1980s, male artists dominated language-based visual art. De Gaudemar observes that neon is also most commonly associated with male artists, including Dan Flavin, Bruce Nauman, and

15

Glenn Ligon, a point that made Bartana’s neon work even more intriguing to her.

“I had been thinking about a thirtieth-anniversary gift for the museum, and when I saw this work I immediately thought, ‘This is the one,’” she says. “I understand that Bartana’s neon is the most Instagrammed artwork at the museum this year. I particularly love seeing photographs of children posing with the work, as it means a lot to me that they might be inspired by its message.” // Kathryn Wat is the chief curator at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

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Yael Bartana, What if Women Ruled the World, 2016; Neon, 98 ½ x 38 ½ in.; Museum purchase, Belinda de Gaudemar Acquisition Fund, with additional support from the Members’ Acquisition Fund

© YAEL BARTANA; PHOTO BY LEE STALSWORTH

Note: 1. See Helaine Posner, “History Lessons,” in The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium, (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2013), 175–76.

Calendar 16

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EXHIBITIONS

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Daily / Weekly / Monthly

KEY

Gallery Experience: Conversation Pieces MOST DAYS

Women House March 9–May 28, 2018 Hung Liu In Print Through July 8, 2018 Hard to Define: Artists’ Books from the Collection On view through March 23, 2018, in the Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center; Open Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.– 12 p.m. and 1–5 p.m.

Join us for thirty-minute conversations that spotlight two works on view. Check in at the Information Desk.

F Free M

Free for members

+ Free for members and one guest A

Free with admission

O

No reservations required

R

Reservation required,

make reservations at

Gallery Talks: Lunchtime Series WEDNESDAYS

12–12:30 P.M. // F M O

Bite-sized lunchtime talks led by museum staff members encourage visitors to look closely and discuss works in exhibitions and the museum’s collection.

https://nmwa.org E

2–2:30 P.M. // M A O

Free Community Days

Exhibition-related program

FIRST SUNDAYS

12–5 P.M. // F M O

The first Sunday of each month, NMWA offers free admission to the public. Enjoy current exhibitions and collection galleries.

March

3 / 3

Family Day: Women’s History Day at DAR

SAT 10 A.M.–2 P.M. // F M O

Celebrate Women’s History Month at the DAR Museum with NMWA. Stop by NMWA’s station to learn about women artists through hands-on activities.

3 / 4

SUN 12–5 P.M. // F M O

Free Community Day

3 / 4

SUN 1–2 P.M. // F M O

Drop-In Tour: Fierce Women Discover fierce women who blazed trails as artists, activists, and innovators. Limited space—check in at the Information Desk.

3 / 4

SUN 2:15–3:15 P.M. // F M O E

Film: Womanhouse The documentary Womanhouse (1974, 47 min.) explores the groundbreaking 1972 art installation and performance space Womanhouse, organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro.

3 / 7

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O E

Gallery Talk: Hung Liu In Print

3 / 8

THU 11 A.M.–2 P.M. // M + O E

Member Preview Day: Women House

LEE STALSWORTH

WINTER/SPRING 2018

Attend a special preview of Women House! Global artists recast conventional ideas about the home through provocative photographs, videos, sculptures, and installations.

Left, top to bottom: Francesca Woodman, space 2, Providence, Rhode Island, 1975–76/2000–01; Gelatin silver print on barite paper, 10 x 8 in.; © George and Betty Woodman, New York / The SAMMLUNG VERBUND Collection, Vienna; On view in Women House; Hung Liu, Sisters, 2000; Lithograph with chine collé on paper, 22 × 29 ¾ in.; NMWA, Gift of the Harry and Lea Gudelsky Foundation, Inc.; On view in Hung Liu In Print

Visit https: //nmwa.org for reservations, a complete calendar of events, and more information.

3 / 28

Gallery Talk: Women House

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WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O E

3 / 28

NMWA Nights: Welcome to Our House

WED 6–8:30 P.M. // R E

Explore your crafty side, NMWA’s collection, and Women House during this happy-hour event. Includes two drink coupons, snacks, and craft materials. $25 general or goods donation. Proceeds benefit N Street Village.

KEVIN ALLEN PHOTOGRAPHY

April

3 / 8

Exhibition Opening Party: Women House

THU 7:30–11 P.M. // R E

3 / 13

Teacher Program: Children, Art, and Language Renowned museum educator Philip Yenawine makes a case for imagery as a vehicle for language development in early childhood.

3 / 14 Gallery

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O

3 / 17

Free Community Day

SUN

1 2–5 P.M. // F M O

4 / 4

Gallery Talk: Women House

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O E

4 / 8

SUN 1–2 P.M. // M A O

Drop-In Tour: Natural Women

4 / 11

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O E

TUE 7–8:30 P.M. // F M R

4 / 1

Celebrate art and artists inspired by nature in NMWA’s collection. Presented in conjunction with the 2018 National Cherry Blossom Festival.

You’re invited to our house party! Join us to celebrate International Women’s Day and the opening of Women House. Includes tours, local music, and open bar. $40 general; $30 members.

4 / 14

Gallery Talk: Women House Slow Art Day

SAT 12–2 P.M. // M A R

Participate in the international Slow Art Day movement at NMWA to look at and discuss five works on view.

Talk: Collection Sampler

Wikipedia Edit-a-thon: Art + Feminism

SAT 10 A.M.–3 P.M. // F M R

Help us add and update Wikipedia articles about notable women artists and art-world figures. Bring your laptop and motivation to combat gender bias.

3 / 18

Fresh Talk: Righting the Balance III

SUN 4:30–8 P.M. // R

The third annual “Righting the Balance” Fresh Talk explores efforts toward gender parity in museums. Featuring Laurence des Cars, director, Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Frances Morris, director, Tate Modern, London; and Eike Schmidt, director, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Includes museum admission and Sunday Supper. $25 general; $20 members, seniors, students.

3 / 21

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O E

3 / 22

Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital

THU 6:30–9 P.M. // F M R

Enjoy a screening presented in partnership with the world’s premier showcase of environmentally themed films.

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KEVIN ALLEN PHOTOGRAPHY

Gallery Talk: Hard to Define

EMILY HAIGHT, NMWA

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May

KEY

F Free M

Free for members

+ Free for members and one guest

A

Free with admission

O

No reservations required

4 / 15

R

Reservation required,

make reservations at

https://nmwa.org E

Exhibition-related program

Film and Reception: Little Stones

SUN 3–5:30 P.M. // R

Little Stones (2017, 87 min.) is an award-winning documentary spotlighting women artists creating change around the world. Includes museum admission and reception. $10 general; $5 members, seniors, students.

4 / 18

Gallery Talk: Women House

5 / 2

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O E

Gallery Talk: Women House

5 / 2

WED 7:30–9:30 P.M. // F M R

Shenson Chamber Music Concert: Angela Hewitt Artistic Director Gilan Tocco Corn welcomes worldrenowned pianist Angela Hewitt to kick off “A Celebration of Music in May” for the 20th-anniversary year of Shenson Concerts.

5 / 6

Free Community Day

SUN

1 2–5 P.M. // F M O

/ 6 Drop-In 5

Tour: Fierce Women

SUN 1–2 P.M. // F M O

Discover fierce women who blazed trails as artists, activists, and innovators. Limited space—check in at the Information Desk.

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O E

4 / 20

2018 Spring Gala

FRI 6:30 P.M.–12 A.M. // R

Enjoy dinner, dancing, and a silent auction at the museum’s largest annual fundraising event.

4 / 25

Gallery Talk: Collection Sampler

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O

4 / 28

Firsthand Experience Workshop: “Women’s Work”

SAT 9:30 A.M.–2:30 P.M. // R E

Join us for a hands-on workshop inspired by “Women House.” Includes materials, instruction, and inspiration. $25 general; $15 members, seniors, students.

CASEY BET TS, NMWA

WINTER/SPRING 2018

Visit https: //nmwa.org for reservations, a complete calendar of events, and more information.

5 / 6

Film: Womanhouse

SUN 2:15–3:15 P.M. // F M O E

The documentary Womanhouse (1974, 47 min.) explores the groundbreaking 1972 art installation and performance space Womanhouse, organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro.

5 / 9

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O E

6 / 13

Fresh Talk: Out Loud

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WED 7–9 P.M. // R

Join award-winning poets Elizabeth Acevedo and Emi Mahmoud for spoken-word performance and conversation. Ticket includes museum admission and cocktail hour. $25 general; $20 members, seniors, students.

Gallery Talk: Women House

5 / 9 Shenson Chamber Music Concert: ModernMedieval Trio of Voices

WED 7:30–9:30 P.M. // F M R

Artistic Director Gilan Tocco Corn welcomes vocal trio ModernMedieval Trio of Voices, who combine medieval chant and polyphony with new commissions and later music as a part of “A Celebration of Music in May.”

5 / 16

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O E

5 / 19

Gallery Talk: Hung Liu In Print Firsthand Experience Workshop: “Women’s Work”

SAT 9:30 A.M.–2:30 P.M. // R E

Join us for a hands-on workshop inspired by Women House. Includes materials, instruction, and inspiration. $25 general; $15 members, seniors, students.

5 / 23

Gallery Talk: Women House

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O E

5 / 23

Shenson Chamber Music Concert: Aizuri Quartet

WED 7:30–9:30 P.M. // F M R

5 / 30

PHOTO BY ERICA LYN

Artistic Director Gilan Tocco Corn welcomes Aizuri Quartet, the acclaimed string quartet, to cap “A Celebration of Music in May.” Gallery Talk: Hung Liu In Print

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O E

Aizuri Quartet, performing May 23

June

6 / 3

SUN 12–5 P.M. // F M O

Free Community Day

6 / 6

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O

Gallery Talk: Collection Sampler

/ 6 Artists 6

in Conversation: Hung Liu

WED 6:30–8:30 P.M. // R E

Artist Hung Liu shares her stories and artwork featured in Hung Liu In Print. Includes in-gallery conversation and refreshments. $25 general; $15 members, seniors, students.

6 / 13

Gallery Talk: Collection Sampler

WED 12–12:30 P.M. // F M O

Education programming is made possible by Mrs. Marjorie Rachlin, the Leo Rosner Foundation, SunTrust, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Additional support is provided by Wells Fargo, the Harriet E. McNamee Youth Education Fund, William and Christine Leahy, and the Junior League of Washington. //

The Women, Arts, and Social Change initiative is generously sponsored by Denise Littlefield Sobel, The MLDauray Arts Initiative, the Swartz Foundation, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, and the Bernstein Family Foundation. Additional support is provided by Deborah G. Carstens and the Ray and Dagmar Dolby Fund.

The Shenson Chamber Music Concert Series is made possible by support from Fred M. Levin and Nancy Livingston and The Shenson Foundation in memory of Drs. Ben and A. Jess Shenson.

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Hung Liu, Shui-Water, 2012; Color aquatint etching with gold leaf on paper, 47 × 36 in.; NMWA, Promised gift of Steven Scott, Baltimore, in honor of the artist and the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the National Museum of Women in the Arts

ON VIEW THROUGH JULY 8, 2018

Orin Zahra

NMWA presents a selection of dazzling prints and an imposing tapestry by artist Hung Liu (b. 1948). She is celebrated largely for her paintings, and this focus exhibition showcases the way she translates the palpable texture of her canvases into works on paper. Through her layered and expressive prints, Liu probes the human condition, individual and national history, and issues of culture and identity.

PHOTO BY LEE STALSWORTH ; © HUNG LIU

Hung Liu’s imagery blurs together fragments of intensely personal and historical collective memory.

Hung Liu, The Bride, 2001; Lithograph on paper, 34 ⅜ × 34 ⅜ in.; NMWA, Promised gift of Steven Scott, Baltimore, in honor of the artist and the Thirtieth Anniversary of the National Museum of Women in the Arts

WINTER / SPRING 2018

born in changchun, china, Liu grew up during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. As a young woman, she worked as an agricultural laborer and trained as a painter. She immigrated to the United States in 1984 and received her MFA from the University of California, San Diego.

Liu traveled back to China in 1991, where she discovered turn-of-the-twentieth-century photographs of Chinese courtesans that became the foundation for much of her work.

Whether her subjects are Chinese prostitutes and refugees or, more recently, Americans displaced during the Great Depression, she aims to lend a voice to the downtrodden, oppressed, and those lost to obscurity.

Printmaker Hung Liu is a voracious learner. For the subjects of her works, she researches historical photographs and archival texts, and for their execution, she collaborates with master printers who contribute technical expertise. To create her prints, Liu chooses a detail from one of her previous paintings, usually producing a mirrored image of the original composition. She enjoys exploring the motion and energy that moves in the opposite direction of the painting. She has also experimented with techniques that bridge printmaking with painting, using viscous printer’s inks rather than oil paints to create her gestural marks.

PHOTO BY LEE STALSWORTH ; © HUNG LIU

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Liu aims to achieve similar effects through layering techniques in both painting and printmaking, and she asserts that “each medium has its own strengths but also its own challenges.”¹ In her paintings, Liu creates her characteristic flowing layers with veils of dripping linseed oil, and in her prints she uses various other techniques, such as making incisions on woodcuts, or running acid from top to bottom on a copper plate. She has also ventured into the visual language of tapestry, in which fine threads in myriad colors translate the appearance of drips into the textile medium.

Despite the methodical processes required by printmaking, the end result always yields a surprise for the artist.

More so than painting, printmaking enables Liu to build images organically through layers. “That’s the beauty of [the printmaking process]. If you know exactly what happens, then why would you do it?” she says. “It is like poetry. You live with layers.”²

Visionary Liu builds on her background in traditional landscape painting to create what she has termed “socialist surrealism.”³ She depicts a world that reverberates with political and economic exploitation of society’s most vulnerable, but one that germinates only from the artist’s mind. Her signature drips serve to wash away part of the subject, evoking the

PHOTO BY LEE STALSWORTH ; © HUNG LIU

23

Communist sympathizers who sacrificed their lives for their country during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45).

Hung Liu’s imagery blurs together fragments of intensely personal and historical collective memory. Across time and place, Liu creates a powerful connection with her subjects, who appear compelling and enigmatic, and are no longer forgotten.

Orin Zahra is the assistant curator at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

//

Hung Liu In Print, presented in the Teresa Lozano Long Gallery of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, is organized by the museum and generously supported by its members.

Notes 1. Hung Liu, interview with the author, December 27, 2017.

2. Hung Liu, interview in OKTP (Berkeley, CA: Paulson Bott Press, Feb. 1, 2013).

3. Hung Liu, interview in OKTP (Berkeley, CA: Paulson Bott Press, Nov. 1, 2008). Liu was trained in socialist realism, a type of propaganda art that created a highly positive image of Mao Zedong and glorified Communist values.

4. Han Qing, “The Many Faces of Hung Liu,” trans. Luisetta Mudi, Radio Free Asia, Oct. 18, 2005, http://www.rfa.org/english/china/ china_artist-20051018.html.

Left: Hung Liu, Sisters, 2000; Lithograph with chine collé on paper, 22 × 29 ¾ in.; NMWA, Gift of the Harry and Lea Gudelsky Foundation, Inc.

Above: Hung Liu in the Tamarind studio creating Breast Milk (2016)

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PHOTO BY LEE STALSWORTH ; © HUNG LIU

PHOTO BY JEFF KELLEY

graininess of fading memories. By incorporating flowers, animals, insects, and circles, which reference traditional Chinese painting and Eastern philosophies such as Zen Buddhism, she further enriches each story, allowing viewers to uncover the layers of meaning.

Shui-Water (2012) alludes to a Chinese water landscape painting that Liu has outlined in the background, overlaid by a graceful woman embellished with flowers and butterflies. On closer inspection, however, one sees a sinking boat, and Liu’s drip marks make the figure appear to be melting or encased in dark rising smoke. What initially seems to be a straightforward portrait of an anonymous courtesan transforms into something more ominous.

Liu’s work poignantly delves into the spectrum of women’s misfortunes, hopes, and interrelationships. In 2001, Liu created her “Unofficial Portrait” series, depicting the stages of a woman’s life in three prints: the youthful, carefree Maiden, the solemn Bride uncertain of her future, and the aged Martyr.

Describing the bride, Liu states, “This is the point at which a woman becomes someone’s wife, someone’s daughterin-law, and later a mother, so it’s an important transition.”⁴ These single portraits yield a rather different psychological impact than Liu’s depictions of groups of women.

Whereas the young prostitutes and brides are isolated, works like Sisters (2000) represent the bonds and innocence of childhood. Contrasting blood relations to ideological sisterhood, Sisters-in-Arms I (state II) (2003) depicts the connections between women who commiserate in shared hardships and grief. According to the artist, these women soldiers were likely

Hung Liu, Sisters in Arms I (state II); 2003, Lithograph on paper, 30 × 36 in.; NMWA, Promised gift of Steven Scott, Baltimore, in honor of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the National Museum of Women in the Arts

KEVIN ALLEN

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El Tendedero/ The Clothesline Project Mónica Mayer, #MeToo, and NMWA’s First Fresh Talk Forum

WINTER/SPRING 2018

Alicia Gregory

From the museum’s entranceway, neon pink ballots were visible—hundreds of them crowded on string that ran the length of one wall, top to bottom, in the Teresa Lozano Long Gallery.

This was El Tendedero/The Clothesline Project by renowned Mexican artist Mónica Mayer (b. 1954), a participatory installation that addressed gender-based violence, presented November 10, 2017–January 5, 2018.

The piece played on a traditionally feminine form (the clothesline) to create awareness and dialogue around issues of sexual harassment, domestic violence, and verbal violence—issues as important today as they were in 1978 when Mayer began the project, which has now been staged five times.

The ballots asked a series of questions in both English and Spanish: “Have you ever experienced violence or harassment?” “As a woman, where do you feel safe?” “Have you denounced violence against women?” Participants provided more than 1,000 answers, describing difficult, heartbreaking

Cultivating Community In her forty-plus years presenting feminist work that challenges gender norms, Mayer has always emphasized dialogue, participation, and collective response. NMWA reached out to organizations that provide services to women directly impacted by gender violence, including La Clinica del Pueblo, a community health clinic for Latino/a immigrants, and House of Ruth, a nonprofit that supports women who have suffered domestic violence. Both were receptive to using art for truth-telling, healing, and addressing gender violence.

In September 2017, Mayer spent a week in D.C. offering workshops to women from both partner organizations, as well as to a group of fifteen artists and activists from D.C. and Baltimore who address gender-based violence in their own practices. The workshops offered Mayer a chance to present the history of El Tendedero and its previous iterations throughout Mexico and South America (as well as one other U.S. installation, in Los Angeles in 1979), and listen to the women talk about their experiences—important input that would help shape the exhibition’s framing questions.

Mayer was struck by two points that surfaced in the workshops: the first was the defenselessness of immigrant Opposite and right: Visitors in the gallery taking part in and reading contributions to El Tendedero/ The Clothesline Project

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KEVIN ALLEN

experiences marked by defiance, love, and a resolve to change the way women are treated in the world today.

The NMWA project got its start during a museum board trip to Mexico City in November 2016, which included a visit to Mayer’s home studio. Trustee Mary Mochary was so moved by an archived El Tendedero in Mayer’s studio that she told museum staff members, who were similarly inspired. They began a conversation with Mayer about staging the project at NMWA, and the public programs team committed to facilitating an installation and Fresh Talk Forum that were deeply collaborative with women from the local community. The project promised to enhance the commitment of the Women, Arts, and Social Change (WASC) initiative to presenting socially conscious programming—with two full months of engagement culminating in the installation and Fresh Talk Forum.

Mónica Mayer discusses her work in NMWA’s first Fresh Talk Forum

Mayer has always emphasized dialogue, participation, and collective response. and poor women who fear being fired, retaliated against, or even deported. This prompted Mayer to include a white ballot

that simply read, “For those who cannot.” The second was an emphasis on recovering joy, something the artists and activists described as necessary for their personal health and their work.

This point inspired the question, “How did you, or how could you, recover joy after experiencing violence or harassment?”

Fresh Talk Forum Shortly after Mayer’s D.C. workshops, the #MeToo hashtag (started by Tarana Burke more than ten years ago) went viral, offering millions of women and men a digital way to denounce sexual assault and harassment. By the time El Tendedero opened at NMWA, the national conversation was at a peak and the Fresh Talk Forum offered an in-person opportunity to break bread at this “tipping point”—what Public Programs Director Melani N. Douglass called the moment.

On Sunday, November 12, more than 175 women and men came to the Fresh Talk Forum with Mayer in conversation with Dilcia Molina, the gender and health program manager at La Clinica del Pueblo, and Maurissa Stone Bass, director of the Living Well in Baltimore, who participated in the artist/ activist workshop. Moderated by Douglass, the conversation touched on the roles of safety, silence, and joy within a culture of violence, as well as the potential of art as a tool for societal change. Douglass prompted audience members to draw on their strengths in art, activism, and anti-violence work—transforming the talk into a true forum for change.

Alicia Gregory is the public programs manager at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

El Tendedero/The Clothesline Project is the result of NMWA’s first Women, Arts, and Social Change (WASC) community collaboration. The collaboration, exhibition, and accompanying Fresh Talk are generously sponsored by Denise Littlefield Sobel, The MLDauray Arts Initiative, The Swartz Foundation, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, and the Bernstein Family Foundation.

Additional support is provided by Deborah G. Carstens, the Ray and Dagmar Dolby Fund, and the Honorable Mary V. Mochary.

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KEVIN ALLEN

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Left: Denise Aubertin, Shakespeare Hamlet, 1989; Softcover book and food materials, 9 ½ x 6 ¼ x 6 ¼ in.; NMWA, Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center; Gift of Julia Blakely

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Hard to Define Artists’ Books from the Collection On view through March 23, 2018

WINTER/SPRING 2018

Sarah Osborne Bender

Before I joined the staff at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, all of my visits to the museum included time with the collection of artists’ books. I knew of collections elsewhere, but only at NMWA were they almost always on display. In the galleries, I recall seeing Audrey Niffenegger’s dark and quiet book The Adventuress, Elisabetta Gut’s kinetic L’uccello di fuoco (Da Stravinsky), and M. L. Van Nice’s Swiss Army Book, a meta meditation on the form.

Below: Sophie Calle, Exquisite Pain, 2004; Cloth-bound sewn book, 4 ⅛ x 7 ⅞ in.; NMWA, Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center

Upstairs in the Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center, which is open to the public, there were more artists’ books on view. Pamela Spitzmueller’s British Museum Memoir, with shiny copper cover and crinkly paper pages, and Lois Morrison’s strange and enchanting book The Mexican DogTosser. Since I began my position at the museum in 2016, my role as custodian of this collection has been one of the pleasures of leading the library.

While our efforts to create detailed records of each artist’s book in the library are nearly complete, only a selection have been photographed. The best way for me to get to know the collection was to sit in the rare book room and open every box and envelope, take each artist’s book off the shelf, and look at them one by one. Hard to Define is the result of that kidin-a-candy store experience. The show illustrates incredibly varied forms, from bound books to a shape-shifting book, to something not shaped like a book at all. There are books about making books, books about storytelling, books about history, and books about fantasy. Visitors often ask, “What’s an artist’s book?” This show answers: That’s hard to define, but it’s a lot of fun to try.

Shakespeare Hamlet, 1989 Denise Aubertin (b. 1933) began making artists’ books in 1969.

She took inspiration from contemporaries Dieter Roth, who made art from food and is sometimes credited with making the first artists’ books, and Tom Phillips, whose works are altered texts that use cutting and collage. She describes her early approaches: “I rubbed books on the muddy balcony. . .

Left and below: Book

by Ann Kresge, poems

by Hannah Taylor, Someone, Somewhere/ Souverain et Souterrain, 1986; Dos-à-dos book with concertina binding, handmade paper, letterpress, and intaglio, 7 x 9 ⅞ in.; NMWA, Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center

[left them] in the rain and in the wind, put them in the kitchen, very close to the stove, where the fat splashed them, then, over pages dirtied with a ‘symbolic grime,’ I wrote my newspaper, with images that I made mine. Soon, I was about to find a solution of a very personal way of expression.” In 1974, she made the first of her “Livres Cuit,” or cooked books.

She matches each book, typically classics of Western literature, with a specific recipe, which she cakes thickly onto the exterior and then oven-bakes. She has used polenta, peppers, cloves, and candied fruits, among other ingredients, to make crisp, brittle crusts for books by Shakespeare, Paul Auster, Jorge Luis Borges, and others. Aubertin extends the object of the book into an unexpected realm while rendering it useless as an intellectual object.

Someone, Somewhere/Souverain et Souterrain, 1986 Artists’ books provide a perfect environment for the collaboration of poets and artists. Someone, Somewhere/Souverain et Souterrain, by Ann Kresge (b. 1957), is a textured vehicle for evocative lines of poetry by Hannah Taylor. A unique dos-

à-dos book, which clasps together two bound books face to face, it pairs the terrestrial and the aquatic, feeling like an exploration that shifts from the shore to the sea. Kresge’s handmade papers play with materiality and transparency, the irregular edges layering like waves or sediment, and she uses embossed text for Taylor’s words.

Exquisite Pain, 2004 While the form of this book is straightforward, the content is intense, exhaustive, and unsettling. Sophie Calle (b. 1953), working in her familiar territory of memory and evidence, charts an obsession with the demise of a relationship in every page of Exquisite Pain. For the first half of the book, Calle counts down the last ninety-two days of her relationship with a man who broke up with her over the phone while she was working in Japan. She presents diary-like entries, photographs, and ephemera as evidence of the days’ ordinariness. Then the phone call happens. The second half of the book pairs a daily reexperience of the phone call on the left-hand page with another person’s retelling of an episode of their own tragedy or loss on the right. As the reader turns each page, the repetition both exaggerates the loss and robs it of impact, eventually draining Calle of her pain. // Sarah Osborne Bender is the director of the Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

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Visitors often ask, “What’s an artist’s book?" That’s hard to define, but it’s a lot of fun to try.

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Shirley Baskin Familian

Shirley Baskin Familian, Catch A Falling Star, 2008; Postage stamps on Dibond, 16 in. diameter; On loan from the artist

Catch A Falling Star, 2008 Orin Zahra Fascinated with the myriad colors, patterns, and designs of postage stamps, Shirley Baskin Familian (b. 1920) collages canceled stamps into mandala-like forms and onto household objects that become vibrant sculptures. Catch A Falling Star exemplifies the bold collages created by the artist, who has loaned the work for display in the museum’s collection gallery devoted to the topic of domestic space. Much of the art in this gallery, like Familian’s, makes use of subjects or materials from everyday life.

Familian studied art and design at the University of Washington; during the first part of her career, she created oil and acrylic paintings and tile mosaics. Initially attracted to postage stamps because they resemble miniscule paintings or prints, she eventually chose collage as her principal medium. In 1992, Familian embellished a step-stool for her two-year-old granddaughter, a gift that served as the springboard for her career in stamp art. Evoking mosaics or patchwork quilts, Familian’s collages recall the Pattern and Decoration art movement of the mid-1970s and 1980s, which featured works with decorative designs as a reaction against the prevailing Minimalist style.

In Catch A Falling Star, Familian uses a range of United States–themed stamps, including the flag, bald eagle, Uncle Sam, the letters USA, Mount Rushmore, and star motifs arranged in concentric rings of red, white, and blue. The title refers to the hit song first made famous by Perry Como in 1957; the artist’s playful titles are

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Evoking mosaics or patchwork quilts, Familian’s collages recall the Pattern and Decoration art movement of the mid-1970s and 1980s.

all borrowed from well-known songs. Other examples include You Are My Sunshine, a flat collage with dazzling yellow stamps that suggest the rays of the sun, and What A Wonderful World, a brilliant globe covered with 3,000 stamps from 180 countries.

Familian usually focuses on a general motif or theme—color, flowers, faces, or patriotism, as in the case of Catch A Falling Star—but the design depends on the type and number of stamps in her collection. She carefully counts, organizes, and indexes each stamp. This arduous cataloguing of her medium

is as much a part of her artwork and process as the finished collages.

The artist’s time-consuming process becomes a means of catharsis. Familian describes her “stamp objects” as the result of “my studies, growth, and equally important, my need to create.” As the artist arranges stamps without an exact end result in mind, the process unfolds organically as a piece of board or everyday object transforms into a work of art bursting with color and energy.

Orin Zahra is the assistant curator at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. //

Committee News Preparing for Heavy Metal— Women to Watch 2018 In the fall of 2017, NMWA’s national and international committees were busy hosting a range of events to celebrate and bring attention to women artists working in metal in their regions.

With Heavy Metal—Women to Watch 2018 set to open in Washington, D.C., on June 28, the outreach committees created opportunities to highlight these women artists.

PHOTO BY DREW ALTIZER PHOTOGRAPHY

Carol Parker, Jenny Gheith, Katherine Vetne, Rhonda Holberton, Davina Semo, Jamie Austin, NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling, and Lorna Meyer Calas at the opening of the San Francisco Women to Watch regional exhibition

Heavy Metal— Women to Watch 2018 opens at NMWA on June 28.

Lisa Cannon Taylor, chair of the Georgia Committee, and committee member Sara Steinfeld at the opening of the group’s pop-up exhibition in Atlanta

Massachusetts Committee nominated artist Donna Veverka with her work at Gallery Kayafas; PHOTO BY BETH TREFFEISEN,

The Georgia Committee organized a pop-up exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, October 5–14, showcasing their nominated artists: Lola Brooks, Chuzhan Du, Didi Dunphy, Rachel Garceau, and Julia R. Woodman.

On October 20, the Massachusetts State Committee organized an exhibition at Gallery Kayafas featuring their nominated artists: Venetia Dale, Cynthia Eid, Linda Kindler Priest, Donna Veverka, and Heather White van Stolk.

The New Mexico State Committee held a panel discussion on October 26 at Shiprock Gallery, welcoming their nominated artists: Keri Ataumbi, Paula Castillo, Constance DeJong, Cleo Romero, and Linda Threadgill.

San Francisco Advocacy for NMWA organized Stardust to Steel, the inaugural exhibition of the nominated Women to Watch artists in their region, November 30–December 15, at the CCA Hubbell Street Galleries, featuring Rhonda Holberton, Davina Semo, and Katherine Vetne.

The UK Friends of NMWA held an exhibition at Phillips Gallery, November 15–22, with a November 21 reception and panel discussion featuring their nominated artists: Claire Barclay, Sarah Barker, Rana Begum, and Alison Wilding.

Installation of UK Women to Watch: Metal at the Phillips Gallery in London

INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER GROUP

The Greater Kansas City Committee worked with the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art on an exhibition, June 16, 2017–January 28, 2018, featuring their nominated artists: Cheryl Eve Acosta, Debbie Barrett-Jones, Angelica Sandoval, Jessica ThompsonLee, and Desiree Warren.

Les Amis du NMWA held a discussion on December 7 at the home of their committee president, Katy Debost, with curator Alicia Knock and their nominated artists: Marianne Anselin, Katinka Bock, Jennifer Caubet, Charlotte Charbonnel, and Laura Lamiel.

The Peru Committee held a panel discussion at MAC Lima on Tuesday, February 6, with regional curator Sharon Lerner and nominated artist Carolina Rieckhof.

WO M E N I N T H E A RTS

On October 19, the Greater New York Committee held a panel discussion, moderated by curator Shannon Stratton, at the Museum of Art and Design with their nominated artists: Alice Hope, Nadia Martinez, and Barbara Smith.

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Member News Increase your Impact with a Corporate Matching Gift Your current or former employer may match, double, or even triple your charitable contributions to the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Taking advantage of a corporate matching donation program is one of the easiest ways to increase the impact of your support for women in the arts.

Simply ask the company’s human resources department for the proper matching form, fill in the requested information, and send it to the museum.

Many corporations will match gifts from their retired employees

and their spouses, too. It only takes a few minutes to make your gift go further!

See Women House first!

Member Preview Day and Opening Party Thursday, March 8, join us from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for a special Member Preview Day for our newest exhibition, Women House. Free admission for members (with current membership card) and one guest. Tours will be scheduled throughout the day. Members receive double discounts (20%) in the Museum Shop and Mezzanine Café.

PHOTO BY YASSINE EL MANSOURI

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That evening, from 7:30 to 11 p.m., you’re invited to our House Party! Join us to celebrate International Women’s Day and the opening of the special exhibition Women House. Enjoy a first look at the exhibition, tours,

local music, an open bar, and light refreshments. Members $30, General $40. Reservations required. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit https://nmwa.org/events/ opening-party-women-house.

Lifetime Achievement Award for NMWA Founder In a ceremony on September 14, 2017, NMWA Founder Wilhelmina Cole Holladay received the Mayor’s Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement from Mayor Muriel Bowser and the

DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. These awards are the most prestigious honors conferred by the District on individuals and organizations for contributions to the cultural life of Washington, D.C.

REBECCA DUPAS

Museum News

NMWA Founder Wilhelmina Cole Holladay accepts the Mayor’s Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser

Museum Events 1. Ali Gass, director of the Smart Museum, University of Chicago, talks with Judy Chicago 2. Judy Chicago meets attendees at Sunday Supper following the Fresh Talk 3. Judy Chicago, NMWA Director of Public Programs Melani Douglass, and Jennifer Queen 1.

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KEVIN ALLEN PHOTOGRAPHY

WINTER / SPRING 2018

Fresh Talk: Judy Chicago— Amplify

Opening reception for Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today

Celebration of Marion Pike and Coco Chanel

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KEVIN ALLEN PHOTOGRAPHY

4. NMWA Trustee Mahinder Tak, Magnetic Fields artist Chakaia Booker, and Alka Kesavan 5. Debra Therit, Sarah Tanguy, and Myrtis Bedolla 6. Magnetic Fields artist Nanette Carter, Kenny Laidlow, Carter Phillips, and Sue Henry 7. Magnetic Fields artist Lilian Thomas Burwell with her work 8. Visitors enjoying the reception

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Book Arts Lecture: Julie Chen

MOHAMMED SANOON

9. NMWA Trustees Joanne Stringer, Pamela Parizek, Ashley Davis, and Cindy Jones 10. Stephanie Sale, Barbara Goldfarb, Geri Skirkanich, Lynn Finesilver Crystal, Dana Marine, and Sarah Bucknell Treco 11. Denise Littlefield Sobel and Lucy Buchanan 12. Andrea Strawn and Steven Strawn 13. Jeffie Pike Durham and Izette Folger 14. Amra Fazlic and Damir Fazlic

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K ATIE BENZ, NMWA

15. Artist Julie Chen and NMWA Book Arts Curator Emerita Krystyna Wasserman 16. Julie Chen presents the Third Annual Book Arts Lecture

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Fresh Talk Forum: El Tendedero/The Clothesline Project

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KEVIN ALLEN PHOTOGRAPHY

17. NMWA Director of Public Programs Melani Douglass, artist MĂłnica Mayer, Dilcia Molina of La ClĂ­nica del Pueblo, Maurissa Stone Bass of The Living Well, and interpreter Kathy Ogle discuss the ways that art can inspire advocacy to reduce violence against women 18. Attendees joined the conversation to share strategies for influencing policy and supporting survivors 19. The speakers and attendees enjoy Sunday Supper following the conversation

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BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Wilhelmina Cole Holladay—Chair, Winton S. Holladay—Vice Chair, Cindy Jones—President, Gina F. Adams—First Vice President, Susan Goldberg— Second Vice President (Community Relations), Joanne C. Stringer— Treasurer, Nancy Duber—Secretary, Mary V. Mochary—Finance Chair, Amy Weiss—Nominations Chair, Nancy Nelson Stevenson—Works of Art Chair, Marcia Myers Carlucci—Building Chair, Carol Matthews Lascaris—President Emerita and Endowment Chair, Dana J. Snyder—At Large, Susan Fisher Sterling—The Alice West Director**, Janice Lindhurst Adams, Pamela G. Bailey, M. A. Ruda Brickfield, Charlotte Clay Buxton, Rose Carter, Diane CaseyLandry, Mary Clark**, Gilan Tocco Corn**, Lizette Corro, Ashley Davis, Betty Boyd Dettre, Deborah I. Dingell, Martha Lyn Dippell, Karen Dixon Fuller, Marian Hopkins, Sally L. Jones, Marlene Malek, Jacqueline Badger Mars, Juliana E. May, Bonnie McElveenHunter, Marjorie Odeen, Pamela Parizek, Jackie Quillen, Sheila Shaffer, Kathleen Elizabeth Springhorn, Jessica H. Sterchi, Mahinder Tak, Annie S. Totah, Sarah Bucknell Treco**, Frances Luessenhop Usher, Ruthanna Maxwell Weber, Alice West **Ex-Officio

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NMWA ADVISORY BOARD

Sarah Bucknell Treco—Chair, Noreen M. Ackerman, Sunny Scully Alsup, Kathe Hicks Albrecht, Jo Ann Barefoot, Gail D. Bassin, Arlene Begelman, Sue Ann Berlin, Catherine Bert, Brenda Bertholf, Eva M. Borins, Nancy Anne Branton, Margaret C. Boyce Brown, Deborah G. Carstens, Paul T. Clark, Donna Paolino Coia, John Comstock, Linda L. Comstock, Byron Croker, Lynn Finesilver Crystal, Liz Cullen, Verónica de Ferrero, Belinda de Gaudemar, Katy Graham Debost, Betty Boyd Dettre, Kenneth P. Dutter, Geraldine E. Ehrlich, Elva Ferrari-Graham, Lisa Claudy Fleischman, Rosemarie Forsythe, Jane Fortune, Claudia Fritsche, Julie Garcia, Lisa Garrison, Nancy Gillespie de La Selle, Barbara S. Goldfarb, Jody Harrison Grass, Anjali Gupta, Sue J. Henry, Anna Stapleton Henson, Caroline Rose Hunt, Kitty de Isola, Jan V. Jessup, Alice D. Kaplan, Arlene Fine Klepper, Doris Kloster, Nelleke Langhout-Nix, Gladys K. Lisanby, Sarah H. Lisanby, M.D., Nancy Livingston, Fred M. Levin, Clara M. Lovett, Maria Teresa Martínez, C. Raymond Marvin, Pat D. McCall, Dee Ann McIntyre, Cynthia McKee, Suzanne S. Mellor,

Milica Mitrovich, Claudia Pensotti Mosca, Deborah E. Myers, Jeannette T. Nichols, Kay W. Olson, Katherine D. Ortega, Margaret H. Perkins, Patti Pyle, Drina Rendic, Barbara Richter, Elizabeth Robinson, Elizabeth A. Sackler, Stephanie Sale, Consuelo Salinas de Pareja, Steven Scott, Marsha Brody Shiff, Kathy Sierra, Ann L. Simon, Kathern Ivous Sisk, Geri Skirkanich, Dot Snyder, Denise Littlefield Sobel, Patti Amanda Spivey, Sara Steinfeld, Josephine L. Stribling, Susan Swartz, Cheryl S. Tague, Lisa Cannon Taylor, MaryRoss Taylor, Deborah Dunklin Tipton, Marichu Valencia, Nancy W. Valentine, Sara and Michelle Vance Waddell, Paula S. Wallace, Harriet L. Warm, Krystyna Wasserman, Island Weiss, Tara Beauregard Whitbeck, Linda White, Patricia White, Betty Bentsen Winn, Rhett D. Workman

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LEGACY OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS ENDOWMENT CAMPAIGN

We wish to thank all of the supporters of the Legacy of Women in the Arts Endowment Campaign, whose generosity guarantees that NMWA will endure and forever inspire for generations to come. Although we can only list donations of $10,000 and above due to space limitations, NMWA is grateful to all donors to the endowment.

Endowment Foundation Trustee ($1 million+) Anonymous, Betty B. and Rexford* Dettre, Estate of Grace A. George, Wilhelmina C. and Wallace F.* Holladay, Sr., Carol and Climis Lascaris, Estate of Evelyn B. Metzger*, The Honorable Mary V. Mochary, Rose Benté Lee Ostapenko*, The Madeleine Rast Charitable Remainder Trust*, The Walton Family Foundation Endowment Foundation Governor ($500,000–$999,999) Noreen M. Ackerman* , P. Frederick Albee and Barbara E. Albee*, Catherine L. and Arthur A. Bert, M.D., J.W. Kaempfer, Jr., Nelleke Langhout-Nix, Joe R. and Teresa L. Long, James R. and Suzanne S. Mellor, National Endowment for the Humanities, Drs. A. Jess and Ben Shenson*, MaryRoss Taylor, Alice W. and Gordon T. West, Jr. Endowment Foundation Fellow ($200,000–$499,999) Catharina B. and Livingston L. Biddle, Jr.*, Marcia Myers and Frank Carlucci, Costa del Sol Cruise, Kenneth P. Dutter, Estate of E. Louise Gaudet, Lorraine G. Grace*, William Randolph Hearst Foundation, Estate of Eleanor Heller*, Fred M. Levin and Nancy Livingston/

The Shenson Foundation, in memory of Drs. Ben and A. Jess Shenson, Dorothy S. Lyddon*/Seven Springs Foundation, Marlene McArthur and Frederic V. Malek, Victoria J. Mastrobuono*, Sea Goddess Iand II Trips, Alejandra and Enrique Segura, Sheila and Richard Shaffer, Clarice Smith Endowment Foundation Counselor ($100,000–$199,999) Janice L. and Harold L. Adams, Nunda and Prakash Ambegaonkar, Carol C. Ballard, Baltic Cruise, Eleanor and Nicholas D. Chabraja, Clark Charitable Foundation, Hilda and William B. Clayman, Julia B. and Michael M. Connors, Martha Lyn Dippell and Daniel Lynn Korengold, Gerry E. and S. Paul* Ehrlich, Jr., Enterprise Rent-A-Car, FedEx Corporation, The Geiger Family Foundation, Barbara A. Gurwitz and William D. Hall, Caroline Rose Hunt/ The Sands Foundation, Cindy and Evan Jones, Alice D. Kaplan, Dorothy and Raymond LeBlanc, Lucia Woods Lindley, Gladys K. and James W.* Lisanby, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Adrienne B. and John F. Mars, Juliana and Richard E. May, Bonnie McElveenHunter, Irene Natividad, The Miller and Jeanette Nichols Foundation/Jeannette T. Nichols, Nancy O’Malley*, Lady Pearman, Reinsch Pierce Family Foundation/Lola C. Reinsch and J. Almont Pierce, Julia Sevilla Somoza, Marsha Brody Shiff, June Speight*, Kathleen Elizabeth Springhorn, Mahinder K. and Sharad Tak, Sami and Annie Totah Family Foundation, Elzbieta Chlopecka Vande Sande Endowment Circle ($50,000–$99,999) Linda Able Choice*, George* and Ursula Andreas, Arkansas Fifty, Lulu H. Auger*, Virginia Mitchell Bailey*, Sondra D. and Howard M. Bender*/The Bender Foundation, Inc., Patti Cadby Birch*, Laura Lee and Jack S. Blanton, Sr.*/Scurlock Foundation, Anne R. Bord*, Caroline Boutté, BP Foundation, Inc., M. A. Ruda and Peter J. P. Brickfield, Margaret C. Boyce Brown, Martha Buchanan, Charlotte Clay Buxton, Sandra and Miles Childers, Mary and Armeane Choksi, Donna Paolino Coia and Arthur Coia, Margaret and David Cole/The Cole Family Foundation, Holland H. Coors*, Porter and Lisa Dawson, Courtenay Eversole, Suzy Finesilver*/The Hertzel and Suzy Finesilver Charitable Foundation, Karen Dixon Fuller, Alan Glen Family Trust, Peter and Wendy Gowdey, Laura L. Guarisco, Jolynda H. and David M. Halinski, Janie Hathoot, Hap and Winton Holladay, I. Michael and Beth Kasser, William R. and Christine M. Leahy, Louise C. Mino Trust, Zoe H. and James H. Moshovitis, Joan and Lucio A. Noto, Marjorie H. and Philip Odeen, Nancy Bradford Ordway, Katherine D. Ortega, Margaret H. and Jim Perkins, Ramsay D. Potts*, in honor of Veronica R.

Potts, Elizabeth Pruet*, Edward Rawson, Jane S. Schwartz Trust, Jack and Dana Snyder, Judith Zee Steinberg and Paul J. Hoenmans, Susan and Scott Sterling, Nancy N. and Roger Stevenson, Jr., Jo and Thomas Stribling, Susan and Jim Swartz, Elizabeth Stafford Hutchinson Endowed Internship—Texas State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, William and Frances Usher, Stuart and Chancy West, Betty Bentsen Winn and Susan Winn Lowry, Yeni Wong Endowment Patron ($25,000–$49,999) Micheline and Sean Connery, Sheila ffolliott, Georgia State Committee of NMWA, New York Trip, Mississippi State Committee of NMWA, Northern Trust, Estate of Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson, Chris Petteys*, Lisa and Robert Pumphrey*, Elizabeth A. Sackler, Estate of Madoline W. Shreve*, Patti Amanda and Bruce Spivey, Sahil Tak/ST Paper, LLC, In honor of Alice West, Jean and Donald M. Wolf, The Women’s Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts Endowment Sponsor ($15,000–$24,999) Deborah G. Carstens, Stephanie Fein, Martha and Homer Gudelsky*, Sally L. Jones, Louise H. Matthews Fund, Lily Y. Tanaka, Liz and Jim Underhill, Elizabeth Welles, Dian Woodner Endowment Friend ($10,000–$14,999) Carol A. Anderson, Julia and George L. Argyros, Mrs. Joseph T. Beardwood, III, Catherine Bennett and Fred Frailey, Susan G. Berk, Mary Kay Blake, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lynne V. and Richard Cheney, Esther Coopersmith, Darby Foundation, Jack J. Dreyfus, Jr.*, Patricia M. and Clifford J. Ehrlich, Mary Page and Thomas B. Evans, Lois Lehrman Grass, Anna Stapleton Henson, Alexine C. and Aaron G.* Jackson, Jan Jessup, Pamela Johnson and Wesley King, Helga and Peter-Hans Keilbach, Howard and Michelle Kessler, Ellen U. and Alfred A. King*, Jacqueline Badger Mars, C. Raymond Marvin, Clyde and Pat Dean McCall, Edwina H. and Charles P. Milner, Evelyn V. and Robert M.* Moore, Harriet Newbill, Estate of Edythe Bates Old, PepsiCo., Inc., Anne and Chris Reyes, Savannah Trip, Mary Anne B. Stewart, Paula Wallace/Savannah College of Art and Design, Marjorie Nohowel Wasilewski, Jean S. and Gordon T. Wells * Deceased (all lists as of January 10, 2018)

Museum Shop

Shop NMWA online at https://shop.nmwa.org or call toll-free 877-226-5294

The Women Cards Featuring figures from Sacagawea to Mary Cassatt, The Women Cards are a beautifully illustrated set of playing cards with 15 original, handdrawn portraits of American women who changed the world. $24/Member $21.60 (Item #29644)

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Q&A with Pegah Shahghasemi and Lisa Ramber, owners of Kuzeh Pottery

Women House Catalogue NMWA’s spring exhibition Women House recasts conventional ideas about the home through provocative photographs, videos, sculptures, and room-like installations, emphasizing artists’ varied views on the home. Full-color illustrated catalogue. Hardcover, 208 pages. $45/Member $40.50 (Item #108)

What inspires you?

PS: I really like Middle Eastern designs and I look at a lot of Persian architecture. I like patterns and I like simplicity.

So I look at them and try to make them a little bit more modern and apply that to my pieces.

LR: I love the creative process, taking a lump of clay, trimming it, and then doing something to it that I think makes it look unique.

How did you get started?

PS: I’ve always loved doing pottery and I took it a little bit in high school and then in college, but then I left it alone. . . . After I had my first daughter, I needed to do something that was just for myself and outside my regular nine-to-five job, and outside of the home. I found a small studio close to my house in New York City. I started taking classes and I got addicted. I couldn’t stop.

LR: I got started as a potter after a friend of mine convinced me to take a pottery class. I started and I hated it.

After about six weeks, I loved it. . . . Then I found a D.C. studio that had a resident artist space. That is where I met Pegah.

Kuzeh Pottery Inked Mug and Pitcher Handmade pottery by Kuzeh is decorated using food-safe glazes. Buy a set or choose 3 ½-in.-high mug or 6-in.-high small pitcher. Mug $36/ Member $32.40 (Item #30091); Pitcher $60/ Member $54 (Item #30092)

WO M E N I N T H E A RTS

What does the word “maker” mean to you?

LR: Being a maker means putting my own mark and stamp on something. I think the other half of that is making something that people are going to use, have in their homes, and enjoy.

Crafting with Feminism Design what’s on your mind with these 25 girl-powered projects. Includes tips for beginner sewing stitches and everything you need to start a crafting revolution. $14.99/Member $13.49 (Item #3157)

Art Oracles What would Frida do? Get creative inspiration from great artists in this set of oracle cards. Set contains 50 oracle cards plus a booklet featuring the artists’ biographies and instructions for using the cards. $14.99/Member $13.49 (Item #29647)

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MODERN MAKERS

1250 New York Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20005-3970

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COMING SOON

Heavy Metal Women to Watch 2018

PHOTO BY SALIM SANTA LUCIA

June 28–September 16, 2018

The fifth installment of NMWA’s Women to Watch exhibition series showcases contemporary artists working in metal. Featured artists enthusiastically investigate the physical properties and expressive possibilities of metalwork through a wide variety of objects, including sculpture, jewelry, and conceptual forms. Inspired by NMWA’s own superb collection

of silverwork crafted by women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this exhibition upends the predominantly masculine narrative that surrounds metalworking. The project also engages with the traditional distinctions between fine art, design, craft, and decorative art categories, whose definitions are rooted in gender discrimi-

nation. Works in the exhibition range in size from large-scale installations to small objects for personal adornment. The featured artists work in a variety of metal forms and materials, including iron, steel, bronze, brass, tin, aluminum, copper, and pewter.

Charlotte Charbonnel, Petit colosse n°7, 2016; Iron filings and resin, 9 ½ x 9 ½ x 9 ½ in.; Courtesy of Backslash // The Women to Watch exhibition series features artists from the regions in which NMWA has national and international outreach committees.

For Heavy Metal, curators in each region created shortlists of artists working in metal, and NMWA selected the final artists from these lists.