September 1–November 30, 2020
A consortium of art institutions from across the United States announced today that they will mount a nationwide season of programming informed by feminist thought and practice. Comprising more than three dozen art museums and cultural organizations to date, the Feminist Art Coalition (FAC) will present a series of exhibitions, performances, lectures, symposia, and new commissions timed to coincide with the next presidential election. The Feminist Art Coalition represents an unprecedented collective endeavor by some of the art world’s leading institutions to generate and support public consciousness of feminist themes and catalyze civic engagement during a critical moment in the history of the US.
Initially convened by the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), the Feminist Art Coalition has expanded into a grassroots initiative collectively administered by the participating institutions—a growing roster that currently includes forty-nine museums and cultural organizations from eleven different states. Each of the participating institutions is mounting its own programmatic initiatives from September through November 2020 that embody the Coalition’s shared commitment to advancing social justice and structural change. Reflecting the broad geographic and institutional diversity of the participants, these programs range widely from major artist retrospectives and group exhibitions, to film festivals, to scholarly colloquia, to performance art commissions, and much more.
To date, the following institutions have confirmed their own programmatic contributions to the Feminist Art Coalition. Additional participating institutions are developing programming that will be announced in the coming weeks and months; for a current list of participants and summaries of their FAC programs, visit feministartcoalition.org.
80 Washington Square East, New York University / Arcadia Exhibitions, Spruance Gallery / Arizona State University Art Museum / Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena / Art21 / The Arts Club of Chicago / The Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College / The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive / The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York / Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College / DePaul Art Museum, Chicago / Emerson College Media Art Gallery, Boston / EMPAC at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute / Fine Arts Gallery, School of Art, San Francisco State University / The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco / The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College / Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles / Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle / Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston / Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles / Jacob Lawrence Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle / Lawndale Art Center, Houston / LAXART / Massachusetts College of Art and Design + MassArt Museum / Menil Collection, Houston / Mills College Museum / MIT List Visual Arts Center / Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles / Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Downtown / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston / Museum of Sonoma County, Santa Rosa / Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University, New Orleans / Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) / Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont, CA / Queens Museum / Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University / The Renaissance Society, Chicago / Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum / Root Division, San Francisco / San Jose Museum of Art / Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) / Seattle Art Museum / swissnex San Francisco / Tufts University Art Galleries / Walker Art Center, Minneapolis / Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts / Whitney Museum of American Art, New York / Williams College Museum of Art (WMCA) / Women Photographers International Archive, WOPHA
The Feminist Art Coalition was inspired in part by the Women’s March that took place on January 28, 2017, one day after Donald J. Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States. After a series of informal conversations and meetings, in spring 2018 a working group of curators came together to build on the momentum generated by this grassroots feminist uprising and to conceptualize and shape the project together. Throughout a multiyear process of research and development, the group has brought together a geographically and programmatically diverse slate of art institutions to produce a series of programs intended to catalyze a transformative dialogue about contemporary feminisms across and beyond the art world. The project’s steering committee consists of Vic Brooks, senior curator of time-based visual art at EMPAC; Apsara DiQuinzio, senior curator of modern and contemporary art and Phyllis C. Wattis MATRIX Curator at BAMPFA; Anne Ellegood, executive director of ICA Los Angeles; Henriette Huldisch, director of exhibitions and curator, MIT List Visual Arts Center; and Rita Gonazlez, head of contemporary art at LACMA.
In concert with its public programming, the Feminist Art Coalition will commission and publish essays from scholars, writers, artists, and others, all of whom have been invited to address the most pressing issues in contemporary feminist discourses. Entitled Notes on Feminisms, this collection of essays will be freely available on the Coalition’s website. The first among these essayists include Jack Halberstam, Saidiya Hartman, Peggy Phelan, and Trinh T. Minh-ha.
“As we stand one year out from what is likely to be the most consequential election for feminist causes in living memory, we feel it is not only timely but imperative that the art community stand together to call for a more inclusive and equitable world—both within the walls of our art institutions and outside of them,” said DiQuinzio, speaking on behalf of FAC. “Working together through an unprecedented cooperative partnership, the Feminist Art Coalition will generate a cultural space for engagement, reflection, and action, while recognizing the constellation of differences and multiplicity among feminisms.”
More information about specific programs that are part of the Feminist Art Coalition will be announced in the coming months, and will be posted on feministartcoalition.org.
This project was made possible with lead support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
