...a puckish, punchy look at the women’s art movement...
—The New York Times
Over the past fifty years, feminists have defied an art world dominated by men, deploying direct action and theory while making fundamental changes in their everyday lives. Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism explores the widespread influence of feminist practice on the styles and methods of painting from the 1960s to the present. The provocative paintings on view here embody the tension between individual expression and collective politics, between a traditional medium and radical action.
While not a survey of Jewish feminist art, Shifting the Gaze is drawn primarily from the collection of The Jewish Museum, and features seven new acquisitions from the past three years. Some art historians have argued that Jewish feminists are particularly attuned to sexuality, radical politics, and injustice because of Jewish involvement in modernism and leftist politics. Indeed, Jewish painters have played decisive roles in founding and sustaining major feminist theories and art collectives. This exhibition explores how social revolutions take place not only in the realm of ideas and politics, but in style and form.
Shifting the Gaze is organized into six sections: self-expression, the body, decoration, politics, writing, and satire. These topics reflect the variety of styles and forms that individual painters, often working within activist groups, created to challenge viewers to rethink memory, home, art history, and ritual, and to confront anti-Semitism. Some of the paintings address issues specific to women artists, such as the representation of the body or the legitimacy of craft and decorative arts, while others address social issues that galvanized radical protest. As seen in these works, feminist painting generated new ideas and challenged old ones, shifting the gaze to encompass women’s history, experience, and material culture.
Since the 1980s, The Jewish Museum has supported the work of feminist artists through acquisitions and exhibitions in all media. To offer a historical framework for Shifting the Gaze, the curatorial staff created a list of over 550 women artists, from Renaissance Italian weavers to contemporary video artists, who have been represented in special exhibitions at the museum since 1947.
Gallery of Images
Women Artists at The Jewish Museum, 1947–2010: Essay | Sortable Index
Artist Talks
All talks are at 1:00pm, free with museum admission.
Tuesday, October 5Judy Chicago
Monday, October 11Mira Schor
Monday, October 18Curator Daniel Belasco
Monday, October 25Deborah Kass
Monday, November 1Robert Kushner
View photos of the artist talks on Flickr.
Related Essay
Curator Daniel Belasco for Lilith Magazine: Size Matters: Notes on the Triumph of Feminist Art (Fall 2010)
Interview
Inspiration: Feminism, Curator Daniel Belasco speaks about the exhibition, The Jewish Daily Forward on YouTube (9/24/2010)
Checklist (PDF) | Floor Plan (PDF)
Blog
Eva Hesse: Abstract Expressionist Painter (1/26/2011)
Selected Images
Louise Fishman (American, b. 1939)
- Oil on linen
- 25 1/8 x 17 1/8 in. (63.8 x 43.5 cm)
- The Jewish Museum, New York
- Gift of the artist in memory of Kristie A. Jayne, 1990-5
Not on view Paintings
Tashlich
Tashlich
Leon Golub (American, 1922-2004)
- Oil on canvas
- 33 1/16 x 56 1/8 in. (84 x 142.6 cm)
- The Jewish Museum, New York
- Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Isidore Samuels, 1998-93
- Art © Estate of Leon Golub/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY; Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts
Not on view Paintings
Napalm Man
Napalm Man
- Oil on canvas
- 59 x 39 1/4 in. (149.9 x 99.7 cm)
- The Jewish Museum, New York
- Gift of Helen Hesse Charash, 1983-234
Not on view Paintings
Untitled
Untitled
Vivienne Koorland (American, b. South Africa, 1957)
- Oil on linen set into wooden mantel
- 55 1/2 x 63 1/2 in. (141 x 161.3 cm)
- The Jewish Museum, New York
- Gift of Gary C. Fink, 1993-268
Not on view Paintings
War Drawing (IV) Adam: This is the Picture We Saw
War Drawing (IV) Adam: This is the Picture We Saw
Lee Krasner (American, 1908-1984)
- Oil on linen
- 30 1/8 x 25 1/8 in. (76.5 x 63.8 cm)
- The Jewish Museum, New York
- Purchase: Esther Leah Ritz Bequest; B. Gerald Cantor, Lady Kathleen Epstein, and Louis E. and Rosalyn M. Shecter Gifts, by exchange; Fine Arts Acquisitions Committee Fund; and Miriam Handler Fund, 2008-32
- © 2008 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Not on view Paintings
Self-Portrait
Self-Portrait
Cary Leibowitz (American, b. 1963)
- Latex on wood
- 76 3/4 x 40 in. (194.9 x 101.6 cm)
- The Jewish Museum, New York
- Purchase: Fine Arts Acquisition Committee Fund and Anonymous Gift, 2001-86
Not on view Paintings
I'm a Jew, how 'bout U?!!
I'm a Jew, how 'bout U?!!
Melissa Meyer (American, b. 1947)
- Oil on canvas
- 80 x 78 in. (203.2 x 198.1 cm)
- The Jewish Museum, New York
- Purchase: Jeane U. Springer in memory of Joy Ungerleider-Mayerson, Patricia M. Erpf, The Morris Ginsberg Family Foundation in memory of Pepi Ginsberg and Joy Ungerleider-Mayerson, and Lois Fried, Gifts, 1995-2
Not on view Paintings
Lilith
Lilith
Louise Nevelson (American, b. Ukraine, 1899-1988)
- Painted wood
- 32 1/8 x 16 1/2 x 2 5/8 in. (81.6 x 41.9 x 6.7 cm)
- The Jewish Museum, New York
- Gift of Hanni and Peter Kaufmann, 1994-583
- © 2008 The Estate of Louise Nevelson / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Not on view Sculpture
End of Day XXXV
End of Day XXXV
Joan Snyder (American, b. 1940)
- Oil, acrylic, and enamel on canvas
- 50 7/16 x 50 9/16 in. (128.1 x 128.4 cm)
- The Jewish Museum, New York
- Gift of Stephanie H. Bernheim, 2007-3
Not on view Paintings
Hard Sweetness
Hard Sweetness
Joan Snyder (American, b. 1940)
- Oil and acrylic on linen, mounted on board with nails and wire
- 12 x 48 in. (30.5 x 121.9 cm)
- The Jewish Museum, New York
- Purchase: Barbara and Bruce Berger Gift in honor of Ruth and Herman Glickman and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, 1989-135
Not on view Paintings
Study for Morning Requiem with Kaddish
Study for Morning Requiem with Kaddish
Nancy Spero (American, 1926-2009)
- Acrylic on linen
- 122 1/4 x 146 1/2 in. (310.5 x 372.1 cm)
- The Jewish Museum, New York
- Purchase: Fine Arts Acquisitions Committee Fund, Blanche and Romie Shapiro Fund, Kristie A. Jayne Fund, Sara Schlesinger Bequest, and Miki Denhof Bequest, 2002-12a-c
Not on view Paintings
Masha Bruskina
Masha Bruskina
Nancy Spero (American, 1926-2009)
Victims, Holocaust, from The War Series: Bombs and Helicopters, 1968
- Gouache and ink on paper; collage
- 24 3/4 x 39 1/2 in. (62.9 x 100.3 cm)
- The Jewish Museum, New York
- Purchase: Milton and Miriam Handler Fund, 2005-48
Not on view Works on Paper
Victims, Holocaust
Victims, Holocaust
Hannah Wilke (American, 1940-1993)
- Painted plaster of Paris
- Each: 9 7/8 x 5 3/16 x 3 5/16 in. (25.1 x 13.2 x 8.4 cm)
- The Jewish Museum, New York
- Purchase: Lillian Gordon Bequest , 2000-20a-i
- Copyright © Hannah Wilke Collection and Archive © Marsie, Emanuelle, Damon and Andrew Scharlatt
Not on view Sculpture
Venus Pareve
