Throughout her long and prolific career Niki de Saint Phalle, a former cover model for Life magazine and French Vogue, investigated feminine archetypes and women’s societal roles. This bold, sexy sculpture of a woman, standing nearly seven and a half feet tall, is both playful and empowering.
Joyce Wieland was influenced by American comic strips, movies, and other forms of popular culture. With a strong background in film and animation, her work draws on the language of cinema as well as a wide range of artistic movements, including Dada and Pop. Wieland’s art often addresses themes of disaster and tragedy, as in Young Woman’s Blues, with its references to some of the personal difficulties that plagued the actress Elizabeth Taylor.
Prolific but under-recognized, Kiki Kogelnik drew inspiration for her brightly colored canvases and sculpture from the space travel, astronauts, satellites, military technologies, and futuristic landscapes of postwar science fiction. Kogelnik also utilized new materials, including vinyl and plastics, producing a remarkable body of works ranging from life-size cutouts of herself and friends to wrapped canvases.
Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists, 1958–1968
October 15, 2010–January 9, 2011
This large-scale exhibition examines the impact of women artists on the traditionally male-dominated field of Pop art. It reconsiders the narrow definition of the Pop art movement and reevaluates its critical reception. In recovering important female artists, the show expands the canon to reflect more accurately the women working internationally during this period. The exhibition features more than fifty artworks by Chryssa, Niki de Saint Phalle, Rosalyn Drexler, Marisol, Yayoi Kusama, Jann Haworth, Vija Celmins, Lee Lozano, Marjorie Strider, Idelle Weber, and Joyce Wieland, among others.
Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists, 1958–1968 was organized by Sid Sachs for the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery of The University of the Arts, Philadelphia. The Brooklyn Museum presentation is organized by Catherine Morris, Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum.
In Philadelphia this project was funded by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative with additional support from the Marketing Innovation Program. This project is also supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
The Brooklyn presentation is supported by the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation.
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