October 22, 2021 – February
27, 2022 |
Women in Abstraction - Guggenheim Bilbao
Women in Abstraction sets out
to write the history of the contributions made by female artists to abstraction
in the 20th century, through to about the 1980s, with a few incursions into the
19th century.
- In accordance with the terms
chosen for the title, the artists are presented here as players and cocreators
in their own right, of modernism and its legacy.
- The exhibition reveals the process
of invisibilization that marked the work of these female artists, while
still presenting their positions, with all their complexities and paradoxes.
Many of these artists adopted a non-gendered identity while others laid
claim to a “female” art.
- This history aims to be open,
embracing dance, the decorative arts, photography and film. The perspective
is also intended to be comprehensive, including the modernities of Latin
America, the Middle East and Asia, while not forgetting African American
women artists and Spanish artists, some of whom have not had international
recognition, in order to recount a multi-voiced history and reach beyond
the western canon.
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Christine Macel, Chief Curator at the Centre Pompidou;
Lekha Hileman Waitoller, Curator of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; Silvia
Churruca, Director of Communication and Institutional Relations, BBVA
Foundation and Juan Ignacio Vidarte, Director General of the Guggenheim
Museum Bilbao |
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents
Women in Abstraction, an exhibition sponsored by the BBVA Foundation that
shares a new vision of the history of abstraction from its origins to the 1980s
through the works of more than one hundred female artists that span visual arts,
dance, photography, film, and decorative arts. Through a chronological analysis,
the exhibit highlights the processes that led to the invisibility of female
artists and points out some of the milestones that marked the history of
abstraction, while questioning esthetic canons, without defining a new one.
Women in Abstraction goes beyond the
idea that art history is a succession of pioneering practices, and by according
female artists a new place within that history, it proves how complex and
diverse it is. This can be seen at the very beginning of the exhibition which
opens with an unprecedented foray into the 19th century presenting the
rediscovery of Georgiana Houghton’s work from the 1860s, undermining the chronological
origins of abstraction by tracing it back to its spiritualist roots. Houghton’s
work illustrates “sacred symbolism,” one of the themes explored in the
exhibition. The spiritualism in vogue in the 1850s constituted a major pathway
into abstraction. Women were its precursors in the 19th century: they were the first
to invent an abstraction that was not conceptualized as such, defined as a
sacred symbolism drawn from a desire to represent the transcendent.
The exhibition also shines a spotlight
on key figures through mini monographs highlighting artists who have been
unfairly eclipsed or rarely shown in Europe. In the catalogue that accompanies
the exhibition, the specific educational, social, and
institutional contexts that surrounded and encouraged or, conversely, hindered
the recognition of women are brought to light. The exhibition reveals why many
women artists did not necessarily seek recognition. It
considers the positions of the artists themselves, with all their complexities
and paradoxes. Some, like Sonia Delaunay-Terk, adopted a non-gendered position
while others, like Judy Chicago, laid claim to a feminine art.
This female version of history
challenges the limitation of the study of abstraction to painting alone, which is
one of the reasons that many women have been excluded, given that such a
modernist approach rejected the spiritualist, ornamental, and performative
dimensions of abstraction. The perspective is also a global one. The energy of
the Parisian scene in the 1950s is underlined by examples of surprising
stylistic combinations, with the works of the Lebanese artist Saloua Raouda
Choucair, Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera and Turkish artist Fahrelnissa
Zeid. The exhibition also explores the modernities of Latin America, the Middle
East and Asia, not to mention the African American artists whose multiple voices
only benefited from certain visibility from the early 1970s onwards to tell
their story with several voices and reach beyond the Western canon.
Another theme explored in the exhibition
is the role of textiles in the history of abstraction. From the early 1960s
onwards, certain artists, mainly from Eastern Europe and the United States, made
what were often monumental textile works that did not have a relationship to the
wall, but rather dominate the space, like sculpture. The term “New Tapestry”,
which assigned these works to the realm of crafts, was progressively abandoned
in favor of “Fiber Art” and “Textile Art”. The “Wall Hangings” exhibition was
presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1969. It was the first
time that textile works were exhibited in an art museum. The Catalan artist
Aurčlia Muńoz’s work makes an important contribution to this theme.
The exhibition’s scenography includes
documentary spaces devoted to founding exhibitions, key women actors of
abstraction, and celebrated critics, particularly within the feminist struggles
of the 1970s and their postmodern interpretation. Landmark publications and
other written materials are included in the exhibition, continuing the
multi-disciplinary lens through which the subject is explored.
Women in Abstraction also raises several
questions. The first concerns the very term of the subject: what exactly is
abstraction? Another deals with the causes of the specific processes that made
women invisible in the history of abstraction that still prevails today. Can we
continue to isolate “women artists” in a separate history when we would like
this history to be polyvocal and non-gendered? Lastly, the exhibition
establishes the artists’ specific contributions, whether pioneers or not, but
in all cases stakeholders in this original and unique history.
• Dates: October 22,
2021 –
February 27, 2022
• Curators:
Christine Macel, Chief Curator at the Centre Pompidou; Karolina
Lewandowska, Curator
of Photography and Director of the Museum of Warsaw, in
collaboration with
Lekha Hileman Waitoller, Curator of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
• Exhibition
organized by the Centre Pompidou Paris in collaboration with the Guggenheim
Museum Bilbao.
• Sponsored by:
Fundación BBVA
The BBVA Foundation is proud to contribute its
sponsorship to the organization of this
major exhibition, which foregrounds the role of women artists in the
roots and evolution of
abstraction in all its different facets.
With a chronological, multidisciplinary
approach, Women in Abstraction showcases the
works of more than one hundred women artists from all over the world to
present an
unprecedented reinterpretation of the history of abstraction. Based on a
vast array of
voices, the exhibition offers a broad, complex vision that highlights
the specific
contributions of each of these creators, regardless of the recognition
they may have
earned until now.
The show also pays tribute to some of the most
influential women collectors of the 20th
century, such as Peggy Guggenheim and Hilla Rebay, women who managed to
anticipate
the importance that abstraction would gain in art history and start some
of the most
important collections in the world with this type of work.
The BBVA Foundation is extraordinarily pleased
to sponsor this exhibition, which
underscores diversity in artistic creation and specifically in
abstraction. Shows like Women
in Abstraction, organized jointly by two prestigious institutions, the
Guggenheim Museum
Bilbao and the Centre Pompidou of Paris, enable us to more deeply study
and appreciate
figures who were ignored or underestimated in the past.
We are confident that the Museum’s visitors
will enjoy this exhibition, which offers the
opportunity to admire a unique set of works of art, not only in
themselves but also because
of what they mean in highlighting the essential role played by many
women pioneers of
modernity.
Carlos Torres Vila
President of the BBVA Foundation
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The artists
Berenice Abbott
1898, Springfield (Ohio, United States) - 1991, Monson (Maine, United States)
Carla Accardi 1924,
Trapani (Italy) - 2014, Rome (Italy)
Etel Adnan 1925,
Beirut (Lebanon)
Hilma af Klint 1862,
Stockholm (Sweden) - 1944, Ösby, Djursholm (Sweden)
Anni Albers 1899,
Berlin (Germany) - 1994, Orange (CA, United States)
Laure Albin-Guillot
1879, Paris (France) - 1962, Paris (France)
APY Lands Collaborative
APY is the acronym for Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara, a large area
of
land that is the home to
several Aboriginal communities located at the meeting points of three Australian
states: South Australia,
Northern Territory and Western Australia. Yaritji Young, Wawiriya Burton,
Nyurpaya Kaika,
Tjimpayie Presley, Naomi Kantjuriny, Angkaliya Eadie Curtis, Nyunmiti Burton,
Tjungkara Ken, Tingila
Young, Sylvia Ken, Wipana Jimmy, Mary Pan, Maringka Baker, Alison Milyka
Carroll, Carlene
Thompson, Mona Mitakiki, Illuwanti Ken, Panjiti Lewis, Tuppy Goodwin, Puna
Yanima,
Julie Yaltangki, Barbara
Moore, Sharon Adamson, Paniny Mick, Betty Muffler, Nellie Coulthardt, Ingrid
Treacle, Meredith
Treacle, Anyupa Treacle, Madeline Curley, Imatjala Curley, Tjangali George,
Elizabeth
Dunn, Teresa Baker, Kani
Patricia Tunkin.
Gertrud Arndt 1903,
Racibórz (Poland) - 2000, Darmstadt (Germany)
Ruth Asawa 1926,
Norwalk (CA, United States) - 2013, San Francisco (CA, United States)
Elena Asins 1940,
Madrid (Spain) - 2015, Azpirotz (Spain)
Vanessa Bell 1879,
London (United Kingdom) - 1961, Charleston Farmhouse, Firle (United Kingdom)
Lynda Benglis 1941,
Lake Charles (LA, United States)
Lee Bontecou 1931,
Providence (RI, United States)
Martha Boto 1925,
Buenos Aires (Argentina) - 2004, Paris (France)
Louise Bourgeois
1911, Paris (France) - 2010, New York (NY, United States)
Trisha Brown 1936,
Aberdeen (DC, United States) - 2017, San Antonio (TX, United States)
Jagoda Buić 1930,
Split (Yugoslavia, today Croatia)
Mary Ellen Bute
1906, Houston (TX, United States) - 1983, New York (NY, United States)
Marcelle Cahn 1895,
Strasbourg (France) - 1981, Neuilly-sur-Seine (France)
Huguette Caland
1931, Beirut (Lebanon) - 2019, Beirut (Lebanon)
Regina Cassolo Bracchi
1894 Mede (Italy) - 1974 Milan (Italy)
Rosemarie Castoro
1939, New York (NY, United States) - 2015, New York (NY, United States)
Gianinna Censi 1913, Milan (Italy) - 1995, Voghera (Italy)
Judy
Chicago 1939, Chicago (IL, United States)
Lucinda Childs 1940, New York (NY, United States)
Wook
kyung Choi
1940, Seoul (Korea) - 1985, Seoul (Korea)
Irene
Chou 1924, Shanghai (China) - 2011, Brisbane (Australia)
Saloua
Raouda Choucair
1916, Beirut (Lebanon) - 2017, Beirut (Lebanon)
Lygia
Clark 1920, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais (Brazil) - 1988, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Carlotta Corpron
1901, Blue Earth (MN, United States) - 1988, Denton (TX, United States)
Parvine Curie 1936, Nancy (France)
Dadamaino (Eduarda Emilia Maino, dit) 1930, Milan (Italy) - 2004, Milan (Italy)
Sonia
Delaunay-Terk
1885, Gradizhsk (Ukraine) - 1979, Paris (France)
Germaine Dulac 1882, Amiens (France) - 1942, Paris (France)
Alice
Essington Nelson
1846, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire (United Kingdom) - 1921, Hove, East Sussex
(UK)
Alexandra Exter
1882, Białystok
(Russian Empire) - 1949,
Fontenay-aux-Roses (France)
Claire
Falkenstein
1908, Coos Bay (OR, United States) - 1997, Venice (CA, United States)
Esther
Ferrer 1937, San Sebastian (Spain)
Helen
Frankenthaler
1928, New York (NY, United States) - 2011, Darien (CT, United States)
Olga
Fröbe-Kapteyn
1881, London (United Kingdom) - 1962, Ascona (Switzerland)
Loďe
Fuller 1862, Fullersburg (IL, United States) - 1928, Paris (France)
Gego
1912, Hamburg (Germany) - 1994, Caracas (Venezuela)
Natalia Gontcharova
1881, Nagaevo (Russian Empire) - 1962, Paris (France)
Marcia
Hafif 1929, Pomona (CA, United States) - 2018, Laguna Beach (CA, United
States)
Harmony Hammond
1944, Chicago (IL, United States)
Mary
Heilmann 1940, San Francisco (CA, United States)
Florence Henri 1893, New York (NY, United States) - 1982, Compičgne (France)
Barbara Hepworth
1903, Wakefield, Yorkshire (United Kingdom) - 1975, St Ives, Cornwall (United
Kingdom)
Carmen
Herrera 1915, Havana (Cuba)
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Sheila Hicks
1934, Hastings (NE, United States)
Marta Hoepffner
1912, Pirmasens (Germany) -
2000, Lindenberg im Allgäu (Germany)
Georgiana Houghton
1814, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) - 1884 London (United Kingdom)
Lotte
Jacobi 1896, Toruń (Germain Empire) - 1990, Deering (NH, United States)
Virginia Jaramillo
1939, El Paso, (Texas, United States)
Tess
Jaray 1937, Vienna (Austria)
Barbara Kasten 1936, Chicago (IL, United States)
Ilona
Keserü 1933, Pécs (Hungary)
Helen
Khal 1923, Allentown (PA, United States) - 2009, Ajaltoun (Lebanon)
Katarzyna Kobro
1898, Moscow (Russian Empire) -
1951, Łódź (Poland)
Benita
Koch-Otte
1892, Stuttgart (Germany) - 1976, Bielefeld (Germany)
Bě la
Kolářová
1923, Terezín (Czechoslovakia) -
2010, Prague (Czech Republic)
Elaine
de Kooning
1918, New York (NY, United States) - 1989, Southampton (NY, United States)
Lee
Krasner 1908, New York (NY, United States) - 1984, New York (NY, United
States)
Germaine Krull 1897, Wilda, Poznań (German Empire) - 1985, Wetzlar (Federal
Republic of Germany)
Ida
Lansky 1910 Toronto (Canada) - 1997, Dallas (TX, United States)
Bice
Lazzari 1900, Venice (Italy) - 1981, Rome (Italy)
Verena
Loewensberg
1912, Zurich (Switzerland) - 1986, Zurich (Switzerland)
Barbara Maples 1912, Temple (TX, United States) - 1999, Dallas (TX, United
States)
Agnes
Martin 1912, Macklin (Canada) - 2004, Taos (NM, United States)
Dóra
Maurer 1937 Budapest (Hungary)
Marie
Menken 1909 New York (NY, United States) - 1970 New York (NY, United States)
Joan
Mitchell 1925, Chicago (Illinois, United States) - 1992, Neuilly-sur-Seine
(France)
Nasreen Mohamedi
1937, Karachi (Pakistan) - 1990, Vadodara (NM, India)
Vera
Molnár 1924, Budapest (Hungary)
Marlow
Moss 1889, London (United Kingdom) - 1958, Penzance, Cornwall (United
Kingdom)
Tania
Mouraud 1942, Paris (France)
Aurčlia Muńoz 1926, Barcelona (Spain) - 2011, Barcelona (Spain)
Elizabeth Murray
1940, Chicago (IL, United States) - 2007, New York (NY, United States)
Aurelie Nemours
1910, Paris (France) - 2005, Paris (France)
Louise
Nevelson
1899, Percaslavie (Ukraine) - 1988, New York (NY, United States)
Vera
Pagava 1907, Tbilisi (Georgia) - 1988, Ivry-sur-Seine (France)
Gret
Palucca 1902, Munich (Germain Empire) - 1993, Dresde (Germany)
Marta
Pan 1923, Budapest (Hungary) - 2008, Paris (France)
Lygia
Pape 1927, Nova Frigurgo (Brazil) - 2004, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Alicia
Penalba 1913, San Pedro (Argentina) - 1982, Saint-Geours-de-Maremne (France)
Howardena Pindell
1943, Philadelphia (PA, United States)
Liubov
Popova 1889, Krasnovidovo (Russian Empire) - 1924, Moscow (USSR)
Bridget Riley 1931, London (United Kingdom)
Dorothea Rockburne
1932, Montreal (Canada)
Olga
Rozanova 1882, Melenki (Russian Empire) - 1918, Moscow (Russian Soviet
Federative Socialist Republic)
Valentine de Saint-Point
1875, Lyon (France) - 1953, Cairo (Egypt)
Zilia
Sánchez 1926, Havana (Cuba)
Helen
Saunders 1885, London (United Kingdom) - 1963, London (United Kingdom)
Lillian Schwartz
1927, Cincinnati (OH, United States)
Monir
Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian 1924, Qazvin (Iran) - 2019, Tehran (Iran)
Arpita
Singh 1937, Baranagar (India)
Janet
Sobel 1893 (Ukraine) - 1968 Plainfield (NJ, United States)
Varvara Stepanova
1894, Kaunas (Russian Empire) - 1958, Moscow (USSR)
Hedda
Sterne 1910, Bucharest (Romania) - 2011, New York (United States)
Gunta
Stölzl 1897, Munich (Germain Empire) - 1983, Zurich (Switzerland)
Sophie
Taeuber-Arp
1889, Davos (Switzerland) - 1943, Zurich (Switzerland)
Atsuko
Tanaka 1932, Osaka (Japan) - 2005, Nara (Japan)
Lenore
Tawney 1907, Lorain (OH, United States) - 2007 New York (NY, United States)
Elsa
Thiemann 1910, Thorn-Mocker (Germain Empire) - 1981, Hamburg (Federal
Republic of Germany)
Alma
Woodsey Thomas
1891, Columbus (GA, United States) - 1978, Washington (DC, United States)
Maria
Helena Vieira da Silva 1908, Lisbon (Portugal) - 1992, Paris (France)
Fahrelnissa Zeid
1901, Büyükada (Turkey) - 1991, Amman (Jordan)
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Release Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
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