CulBeat Express
2017.06.01 12:52
루이스 부르주아 등 16인전 '리바이벌'@국립여성작가미술관, DC(6/23-9/10)
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REVIVAL
June 23–September 10, 2017
National Museum of Women in the Arts
Spectacle and transcendence in contemporary art by women WASHINGTON—REVIVAL, an exhibition of
contemporary sculpture, photography and video by women artists, will be on view at the National
Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) June 23–September 10, 2017. Exploring how arresting
aesthetics and intense subject matter can spur the viewer into a transcendent encounter with a work of
art, the exhibition focuses on 16 artists, including Louise Bourgeois, Sonya Clark, Petah Coyne, Lalla
Essaydi, Maria Marshall, Alison Saar, Beverly Semmes, Joana Vasconcelos and Bettina von Zwehl.
REVIVAL launches the exhibition schedule celebrating the museum’s 30th-anniversary year.
REVIVAL examines the spectacle and visual enchantment that underlies much contemporary
art. Rousing the spirit rather than simply tantalizing the eye, the artists in this exhibition
harness scale, technique and effect in photography and sculpture to reanimate deep-rooted
emotions related to the human experience. Their imagery purposefully elicits a ripple of
exhilaration or tenderness, a shudder of dread or a wave of anxiety.
“REVIVAL is a perfect exhibition as the museum celebrates its first 30 years, and imagines and
plans for its next 30,” said NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling. “Inspired by the museum’s
institution-wide focus on contemporary women artists as catalysts for change, this exhibition
illuminates how women working in sculpture, photography and video regenerate their
mediums to profound expressive effect.”
National Museum of Women in the Arts, REVIVAL 2
“We are focusing on how women artists use spectacle to get to the crux of real issues relating
to the human condition,” said NMWA Chief Curator Kathryn Wat. “These artists are working in
innovative ways to evoke emotion and to testify to the power of both fear and love.”
Women were lesser-known pioneers in the fields of photography and video, and the radically
new methods and forms created by postwar women sculptors are just beginning to be studied
collectively. The exhibition’s title plays on this drive to reveal women artists’ achievements as
well as the stimulating function of the works themselves. The spiritual connotations of the word
“revival” are also intended, as artists strive to decipher the meaning of this world through
imagery that often links life and death.
REVIVAL demonstrates how artists engage space and scale to generate emotional intensity. A
video projection by Maria Marshall, a sculpture hanging from the ceiling by Petah Coyne and an
installation of colossal dresses by Beverly Semmes create immersive, mesmeric environments.
Smaller, meticulously wrought works also draw the viewer in and deliver strong sensorial and
expressive effect.
Artists in REVIVAL favor figurative imagery, yet the impact of their work extends from a
profound connection to the unconscious. Each artist ferrets out the unspoken and unseen
through evocative body-centered subjects. They mine the suggestive power of the fragmented
human body, sculpt peculiar creatures and depict wayward children.
The exhibition surveys three areas of subject matter that have fully immersed the artists. The first section addresses the
female body, which is often distorted or inverted. Suspended figures by Alison Saar, photographs by Lalla Essaydi and
sculptures by Sonia Gomes accentuate the body’s ability to convey the power and vulnerabilities surrounding ethnic and
gender identity. Sonya Clark’s sculptures made from a single part of the body—strands of hair—speak to the impact of
history on the perception of race.
The second section focuses on animals or other creatures, including a signature bronze spider by Louise Bourgeois. A
surreal hybrid animal with her nursing offspring by Patricia Piccinini addresses concepts of modern science such as genetic
engineering. Joana Vasconcelos’s crochet-encased animal statuettes powerfully evoke
the persistence and concentration required to create them. Her work also confronts feminist concerns
and societal conventions, paralleled by her use of
techniques typically categorized as craft and associated with women, such as crochet and sewing.
The third section explores images of the child. Unnervingly large photographs of toddlers by
Bettina von Zwehl and mysterious images of scuffling preadolescents by Anna Gaskell tear at the
tenuous hold we have on both the physical and psychic self.
A vital part of the museum’s programming for its 30th-anniversary year, REVIVAL is drawn from
NMWA’s collection of global contemporary art, public and private collections, and artists’ studios.
Revival is organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The exhibition is supported
in part by awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and Share Fund, with additional
funding provided by the Judith A. Finkelstein Exhibition Fund, American Airlines, the official
airline of the museum’s 30th Anniversary, and NMWA’s Ohio Advisory Group.
National Museum of Women in the Arts
The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is the world’s only major museum solely
dedicated to celebrating the creative contributions of women. The museum champions women
through the arts by collecting, exhibiting, researching and creating programs that advocate for
equity and shine a light on excellence. NMWA highlights remarkable women artists of the past
while also promoting the best women artists working today. The museum’s collection includes
over 5,000 works by more than 1,000 women artists from the 16th century to the present,
including Mary Cassatt, Frida Kahlo, Alma Thomas, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, Chakaia
Booker and Nan Goldin.
NMWA is located at 1250 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., in a landmark building near
the White House. It is open Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. and Sunday, noon–5 p.m. For
information, call 202-783-5000 or visit nmwa.org. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for visitors 65
and over and students, and free for NMWA members and youths 18 and under. Free
Community Days take place on the first Sunday of each month. For more information about
NMWA, visit nmwa.org, Broad Strokes Blog, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
