Feminist Forms: Contemporary Sculpture from the Permanent Collection

“Feminist Forms: Contemporary Sculpture from the Permanent Collection” inaugurates a series of museum exhibitions for 2020 that celebrate the accomplishments of women artists in the one hundred years following the passage of the 19th Amendment. The exhibition offers a focused selection of 20th- and 21st-century sculptural works by women artists ranging from welded steel and aluminum structures to ceramics and repurposed found objects. Through this diverse array of media, “Feminist Forms” describes a shift in subject matter from formal abstraction to more recent narratives addressing cultural and political issues. Tracing the arc of trailblazers such as Dorothy Dehner, Louise Nevelson and Beverly Pepper—pioneering sculptors who battled to win recognition in the male-dominated artworld of the mid-20th century—the exhibition follows the path these forerunners opened for turn-of-the-21st-century women artists whose work explores conceptions of body image, sexuality, maternity and gender equality.