Women’s Histories: Artists Until 1900 / Feminist Histories: Artists After 2000

Women’s Histories, Feminist Histories is the over-arching theme of MASP’s 2019 program, in which all exhibitions are dedicated to women. Two exhibitions have just opened—Women’s Histories: Artists Before 1900 and Feminist Histories: Artists After 2000.

Women’s Histories presents nearly a hundred works from the 1st to the 19th centuries. This is not a single history, but rather many, chronicled through objects made by women who lived in Northern Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, India and the Ottoman Empire. There is an emphasis on the dialogue between textile and paintings (which are themselves often made on fabric). Featuring objects from different periods and geographies, Women’s Histories highlights works that go beyond traditional categories of the fine arts, seeking to offer more plural and inclusive perspectives in art history. In many regions of the world before 1900, hand-made textile work was considered gendered labor, and was seen as the purview of women—no less than painting was typically undertaken by men. Placing these different forms of work together demonstrates the persistence of women’s making across time. Despite textiles being excluded from definitions of art, and despite being barred from training in art academies, Women’s Histories shows that women have always made art.

Curated by Julia Bryan-Wilson, Adjunct-Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art; Lilia Schwarcz, Adjunct-Curator of Histories; and Mariana Leme, Assistant Curator, MASP

Feminist Histories features works by 30 artists and collectives that emerged in the 21st century and which work from feminist perspectives, broadening a debate that gained visibility in the visual arts in from the 1960s through the 1980s, and which continues to intersect struggles, narratives and knowledges. To address feminist histories in the 21st century means starting from the present moment, in the midst of its construction and urgency. Addressing them at MASP involves a further factor, insofar as they are being told at a museum located in the Global South, with one of the most important collections of European art in this hemisphere, and located on São Paulo’s Avenida Paulista, the central stage for demonstrations and political, social, economic and symbolic struggle. There is no single definition of what constitute the feminist strategies and practices in art, but rather a plural understanding of its various currents, considering the many forms of action and the specificities of their contexts—something reflected in our plural titles.

Curated by Isabella Rjeille, Assistant Curator, MASP

An illustrated catalog is published in separate editions in Portuguese and in English, as well as an Anthology of writings in Portuguese gathering fundamental texts on art, women artists and feminism, the result of three seminars held in 2018 and 2019. For orders contact loja [​at​] masp.org.br.

Artists
Mequitta Ahuja, Abigail de Andrade, Giulia Andreani, Sofonisba Anguissola, Santarosa Barreto, Yael Bartana, Marie Constantine Bashkirtseff, Mary Beale, Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Élle de Bernardini, Anna Bilinska-Bohdanowicz, Rosa Bonheur, Olga Boznańska, Louise Breslau, Henriette Browne, Ruth Buchanan, Sebastián Calfuqueo, Maria Emília de Campos, Marcela Cantuária, Mary Cassatt, Carolina Caycedo, Iria Candida Corrêa, Amélia da Silva Costa, Daspu, Victoria Dubourg, Chiquita Ferraz, Celia Castro del Fierro, Clara Filleul, Lavinia Fontana, Artemisia Gentileschi, Paule Gobillard, Eva Gonzalès, Jeanne Gonzalès, Caroline Gower, Maria Graham, Adrienne Grandpierre-Deverzy, Catarina van Hemessen, Pilar de la Hidalga, Clara Ianni, Maria E. Ibarrola, Angelica Kauffmann, Leonor de Almeida Portugal de Lorena e Lencastre (Alcipe), Ellen Lesperance, Judith Leyster, EvaMarie Lindahl & Ditte Ejlerskov, Rosa Luz, Ana Mazzei & Regina Parra, Guadalupe Carpio de Mayora, Virginia de Medeiros, Magdalena Mira Mena, Cornelia van der Mijn, Berthe Morisot, Aline Motta, Rabbya Naseer & Hurmat Ul Ain, Emily Osborn, Kaj Osteroth & Lydia Hamann, Lyz Parayzo, Clara Peeters, Julia Phillips, Mónica Restrepo, Tabita Rezaire, Sallisa Rosa, Imri Sandström, Juliana Sanromán, Thérèse Schwartze, Katia Sepúlveda, Serigrafistas Queer, Tuesday Smillie, Maria Spilsbury, Marianne Stokes, Francisca Manoela Valadão, Mônica Ventura, Maria Verelst, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Elisabeth Geertruida Wassenbergh, Michaelina Wautier, Joanna Mary Wells, Berthe Worms, Carla Zaccagnini and unknown authors.