Community
The Committee creates, supports, and actively participates in programs to advance women in the arts and arts education. Artward BoundMA-NMWA partners with Artward Bound, the nation's first four-year, arts-centric college prep program, to offer high school students unique programs inspired by local events. In August 2022 a class of freshmen, sophomores and juniors participated in a workshop on Surrealism concepts and techniques inspired by the then-forthcoming "New Worlds" Women to Watch exhibit at Gallery Kayafas (October 2022). Imagined and led by visual artist, educator and Committee member Silvina Ibanez, the workshop afforded students the opportunity to create a "new world" as a community, and later to visit the exhibit together. | Of Special Interest A Female Landscape and the Abstract Gesture February 5 – June 2, 2024 Artists Maren Hassinger, Howardena Pindell, Liliana Porter and Mildred Thompson nailed, glued, unraveled, twisted, folded, pierced, tied and, most importantly, fastened--all to aesthetic effect--to highlight the labor of art making. The exhibition takes its title from Mildred Thompson's six-foot-long accordion-fold book A Female Landscape (1977), a gift from the artist to the writer, philosopher, and civil rights activist Audre Lorde, which is on display in the Johnson-Kulukundis Family Gallery (Byerly Hall, 8 Garden St, Cambridge, MA) for the duration of the exhibition. Firelei Báez Báez's paintings, drawings and installations explore the multilayered legacy of colonial histories and the African diaspora in the Caribbean and beyond. Susan Philipsz: If I With You Would Go Philipsz uses sound, song, and site to heighten awareness of space, emotion, and memory as she signs eight different versions of the traditional ballad "James Harris," also called "The Daemon Lover." Her choice of song, that of a young woman lured away to sea, might be understood as a mythical and cautionary echo of the mercantile and maritime history embodied in PEM's historic East India Marine Hall. By presenting her recent work alongside historical German, Japanese, and Chinese examples, sculptor Arlene Shechet encourages us to look anew at works of porcelain and other objects from the Harvard Art Museums. She draws on her past collaborations with porcelain manufactory workers to speak to a larger history, recontextualizing these remarkable objects as both handmade and industrially manufactured, painterly and sculptural. Among other objects, Shechet has created an unparalleled installation that includes two constellations of tableware that emphasize the unique material qualities of plates as sculptural design. Visible from the exterior of the museums, these arrangements, like the painted decoration on the individual plates, invite the outside in and—literally and metaphorically New at NMWANew Worlds: Women to Watch 2024 Hung Liu: Making History "Weeping" paintings and prints by Hung Liu (1948–2021) feature signature paint drips, layers of color, and cultural symbols that pay homage to overlooked figures in history, predominantly vulnerable women and children from the artist's native China. Drawing inspiration from a collection of vintage photographs, Liu portrays migrant laborers, sex workers, female soldiers, and refugees with dignity, endurance, strength, and courage. In Focus: Artists at Work The installation's intimate and immersive design sparks curiosity, inspires advocacy, and encourages slow looking during visitors' exploration of the museum.
Partnerships and CollaborationsThe Massachusetts Committee has sought out alliances with other cultural entities that work with us to support and promote the work of women artists. The list below includes many of these alliances. Abigail Ogilvy Gallery* *Indicates a venue where MA-NMWA has held events |
MA-NMWA is supported in part by funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Cultural Sector Recovery Grant and the Boston Cultural Council's Reopen Creative Boston Fund, administered by the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture.
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