The "Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction" Exhibit (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

The Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction Exhibit, opened last April 15, 2017 at the Museum of Modern Art, shines a spotlight on the stunning achievements of women abstract artists during a pivotal period in art history, between the end of World War II (1945) and the start of the Feminist movement (around 1968). The show will run until August 13, 2017.

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The Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction Exhibit

Drawn entirely from the Museum’s collection, the exhibition features nearly 100 works, drawn entirely from the Museum’s collection, in a diverse range of mediums (paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, prints, textiles, ceramics, etc.) by more than 50 international artists.

 

Lee Krasner (Gaea, oil on canvas, 1.75 m. x 3.19 m., 1966)

The exhibit includes works that were acquired soon after they were made in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as many recent acquisitions.   Within a trajectory that is, at once, loosely chronological and synchronous, it also includes works that range from the boldly gestural canvases of Lee Krasner (American, 1908–1984), Helen Frankenthaler (American, 1928–2011) and Joan Mitchell (American, 1925–1992); the radical geometries by Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape (Brazilian, 1927–2004), and Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt, Venezuelan, born Germany, 1912–1994); and the reductive abstractions of Agnes Martin (American, born Canada, 1912–2004), Anne Truitt (American, 1921–2004) and Jo Baer (American, born 1929); to the fiber weavings of Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sheila Hicks (American, born 1934), and Lenore Tawney (American, 1907–2007); and the process-oriented sculptures of Lee Bontecou (American, born 1931), Louise Bourgeois (American, born France. 1911–2010), and Eva Hesse (American, born Germany, 1936–1970).

 

Sheila Hicks (Prayer Rug, hand-spun wool,
221 cm. x 109.2 cm., 1965)

Reflecting the museum’s ongoing efforts to improve its representation of women artists, the exhibition will also feature many little-known treasures (nearly half of the works on view at the exhibit) for the first time such as collages by Anne Ryan, a suite of photographs (c. 1950) by Gertrudes Altschul (Brazilian, born Germany, 1904–1962) plus recent acquisitions on view for the first time at MoMA such as an untitled sculpture (c.1955) by Ruth Asawa (American, 1926-2013), an untitled work on paper (c.1968) by Alma Woodsey Thomas (American, 1891–1978) and works by Carol Rama (Italian, 1918–2015). 

A suite of photographs

The exhibition surveys the contributions that women made to the remarkable range of abstract styles that took hold internationally during the postwar decades. It is organized into five sections (Gestural Abstraction, Geometric Abstraction, Reductive Abstraction, Fiber and Line, and Eccentric Abstraction) that follow a trajectory that is, at once, loosely chronological and synchronistic.

 

Louise Bourgeois (The Quartered One)

The works on view at the Gestural Abstraction Section include expansive canvases by Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, and Lee Krasner; intimate collages on paper by Anne Ryan (American, 1925–1992); a major bronze sculpture by Dorothy Dehner (American, 1901–1994); and a totemic wood sculpture by Louise Bourgeois who forged her early career in New York’s Abstract Expressionist circles. 

Also on view are photographs by Lotte Jacobi (American, born Germany, 1896–1990), Barbara Morgan (American, 1900–1992), and Naomi Savage (American, 1927–2005).  Featured in two MoMA exhibitions, Abstraction in Photography (1951) and A Sense of Abstraction (1960), that challenged contemporary notions about the representational function of photography, they suggest a vital relationship between abstractions in photography and painting. 

 

Gego (Eight Squares, painted iron,
170 cm. x 64 cm.  40 cm., 1961)

Among the objects on view in the Geometric Abstraction Section are major works, acquired through the landmark 2016 gift of the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection of modern art from Latin America, by María Freire (Uruguayan, 1917–2015), Gego and Elsa Gramcko (Venezuelan, 1925–1994) that are on view for the first time at MoMA. 

Also on view, for the first time, are Orange (1955), a major painting, in nine panels, by Lygia Pape; Vibrational Structure from a Circle, Series B (1951) by Lidy Prati (Argentine, 1921–2008); and Gertrudes Altschul’s suite of photographs which points to the symbiotic relationship between avant-garde photographic circles and contemporary painting and sculpture. 

The works of BelaKolárová (Czech, 1923–2010) and Louise Nevelson (American, born Ukraine, 1899–1988), both artists outside of Latin America, also experimented with the potential of geometric forms and a gridded structure.

 

Louise Nevelson (Big Black, painted wood,
274.9 cm. x 319.5 cm. x 30.5 cm., 1963)

On view in an interstitial gallery are several examples of mass-produced printed textiles (abstract art that you could literally buy by the yard) by  textile designers such as Vera (American, 1909–1993) and Lucienne Day (British, 1917–2010) who created boldly colorful graphic patterns that enlivened the subdued architecture of postwar modern interiors. 

The transparent, free-hanging room dividers of Anni Albers (American, born Germany, 1899–1994), one of the 20th century’s most daring, imaginative and influential weavers are, in contrast, the result of her intensive engagement with materials and process. Studio ceramics, by pioneering potters Getrud Natzler (American, born Austria, 1908–1971) and Lucie Rie (British, born Austria, 1902–1995), reflect the privileging of function, form and texture over decoration.

At the Reductive Abstraction Section are late 1950s and early 1960s Minimalist works, featuring flat, uninflected surfaces and highly simplified, mathematically regular forms, often based on a grid, by Jo Baer, Agnes Martin, and Anne Truitt who reacted against the emotionally charged gestures of Abstract Expressionism, pursuing their uncompromising visions at a certain distance from the mainstream of the Minimalist  movement.

 

Magdalena Abakanowicz (Yellow Abakan, sisal,
315 cm. x 304.8 cm. x 152.4 cm., 1967-68)

The Fiber and Line Section featured artists who created radical woven forms that upend traditional boundaries between art and craft. Monumental weavings by Magdalena Abakanowicz (Polish, born 1930) and Lenore Tawney, as well as Asawa’s untitled looped-wire sculpture (c. 1955) hang from the ceiling. 

Tawney, Magdalena Abakanowicz and Sheila Hicks (represented by a major wall hanging) were early pioneers of fiber art, a new genre in which artists made soft sculptures by crocheting, knotting, looping, weaving and twisting synthetic or natural fibers. Mira Schendel (Brazilian, born Switzerland. 1919–1988), represented here with an untitled work made of knotted paper, from the series Droguinhas (Little Nothings, c. 1964–66), also experimented with materials and techniques. 

 

Ruth Asawa (untitled, hanging, six-lobed
continuous form within a form with one
suspended and two tied spheres, c. 1958)

Ruth Asawa, Gego, Lygia Pape and Barbara Chase-Riboud (American, born 1939), like their Minimalist  contemporaries, also worked with fiber that exploited the gridded structure of warp and weft, a logic that is also reflected in a large group of drawings and prints featuring gridded, woven or lace-like lines.

At the Eccentric Abstraction Section are women artists who are among the key pioneers of a  (who organized the 1966 exhibition Eccentric Abstraction for New York’s Fischbach Gallery) that emphasized unusual materials and processes. Creating similarly tactile works that suggest bodily forms or functions, they include Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, LyndaBenglis (American, born 1941), Lee Bontecou, Carol Rama  and Alina Szapocznikow (Polish, 1926–1973).

Lee Bontecou (untitled, welded steel, canvas,
fabric, rawhide, copper wire and soot, 1961)

The exhibit was organized by Starr Figura (Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints) and Sarah Hermanson Meister (Curator, Department of Photography), with Hillary Reder (Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints). 

Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction: Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), 11 West 53rd St. (between Fifth and Sixth Ave.) , New York City, NY 10019, USA. Open 10:30 AM – 5:30 PM (8 PM on Fridays). Admission: US$25/adult, children below 12 years old is free.