The Jewish Museum presents Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism, an exhibition exploring the widespread impact of feminism on contemporary painting over the last fifty years.
With over 30 paintings and several sculptures and decorative objects, the exhibit is largely drawn from The Jewish Museum’s collection and also includes select loans. Works by 27 artists such as Judy Chicago, Louise Fishman, Leon Golub, Eva Hesse, Deborah Kass, Lee Krasner, Louise Nevelson, Elaine Reichek, Miriam Schapiro, Joan Snyder, Nancy Spero, and Hannah Wilke, among others, are arranged thematically.
“They felt discriminated against in art schools with all-male faculties and galleries took them less seriously than their male peers. They saw a big disparity between the ideals of art and the reality of trying to be an artist, particularly for women,” said Daniel Belasco, the exhibit’s curator.
The works are not ‘outsider art’ in the traditional masculine meaning of artists who are self-taught and often work in isolation from other artists. But they do reflect the perspective of female artists who had to challenge various forms of exclusion in the male art world.
Running until January 30, 2011, Shifting the Gaze examines the ways that artists (male and female) challenge discrimination, advocate self-expression and invent new forms of beauty, breathing life into the medium and offering fresh visions of the world.