Intergenerational girls� clubs at The Jewish Museum

Eva Hesse, Untitled, 1963-64, oil on canvas, 59 x 39 1/4,” Courtesy The Jewish Museum, Gift of Helen Hesse Charash.

Nicole Eisenman, Seder, 2010. Courtesy Leo Koenig Gallery.

In the NY Times, Karen Rosenberg reports that, despite its witless title, The Jewish Museum’s “Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism” is a raucous look at woman’s art, identity and feminism. The exhibition takes as much inspiration from Marcia Tucker�s �Bad Girls� survey of 1994 as it does from more earnest, comprehensive shows of feminist art. “But it has a different feel, perhaps because the artists (almost all Jewish) invoke religious identity as often as gender,” Rosenberg writes. “The show invokes not only the stereotype of the ‘bad girl’ but also the ‘nice Jewish girl.’ It also includes some ‘nice Jewish boys’ with feminist sympathies.

“The exhibition begins with a studious but assertive self-portrait by a young Lee Krasner from 1930 and ends with Nicole Eisenman�s brand-new painting ‘Seder,’ a distinctly untraditional depiction of the festival meal. In between are plenty of other smart, nervy works that grapple with feminism and Judaism, often simultaneously. Organized by the associate curator Daniel Belasco, who is also working on a book about feminist consciousness in New York School art, the 32-painting show is concise yet deep. It�s smartly installed, too: Six themed sections play fast and loose with chronology, creating novel, intergenerational girls� clubs instead of falling back on first wave/second wave distinctions….”

“It�s both smart alecky and searching….Really, the only �gaze� that matters here is the artist�s gimlet eye.”


Artist Talks are at 1:00pm, free with museum admission

Monday, October 4: Joyce Kozloff
Tuesday, October 5: Judy Chicago
Monday, October 11: Mira Schor
Monday, October 18: Curator Daniel Belasco
Monday, October 25: Deborah Kass
Monday, November 1: Robert Kushner

�Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism,� organized by Daniel Belasco. The Jewish Museum, New York, NY. Artists include: Ida Applebroog, Judy Chicago, Rosalyn Drexler, Nicole Eisenman, Louise Fishman, Audrey Flack, Dana Frankfort, Leon Golub, Eva Hesse, Deborah Kass,Vivienne Koorland,Joyce Kozloff, Lee Krasner, Robert Kushner, Cary Leibowitz, Lee Lozano, Melissa Meyer, Louise Nevelson, Elaine Reichek, Miriam Schapiro, Mira Schor, Dana Schutz, Joan Semmel, Amy Sillman, Joan Snyder, Nancy Spero, Hannah Wilke.