Earlier this year it came to my attention that two exhibitions featuring women artists were coming to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. This fact alone isn’t major news, however, these two shows with a similar mission — to showcase contemporary women artists — also had similar titles: He Said/She Said: Contemporary Women Artists Interject at the Dallas Museum of Art and She Said, She Said: Contemporary Artists from the Rubell Museum at the Arlington Museum of Art. It’s noteworthy when the collective conscience aligns in such a way. Although these shows had similar intentions, there was something markedly different between them which is evident in the titling.
The DMA’s He Said/She Said seems to pit women against men and showcases women artists within the context of the historical canon’s focus on male artists. The title exemplifies this by centering a phrase that is often used to undermine and dismiss the experience of women. It goes further by leading with “he” and inserting a forward slash as a barrier. Though the show itself is of course more nuanced than the title, there were many problematic elements, which I discuss in this review.
The AMA’s She Said, She Said references the same idiom, but transforms it, indicating a clear focus on female perspectives. Though the institution has verified that the reference is the popular idiom, for me the title also brought to mind the Beatles song of the same name. The band has noted that the song was inspired by a drug-induced conversation between John Lennon and Peter Fonda, but the heart of the lyrics point to a woman asserting her darkest feelings and a man responding incredulously. As its name suggests, the AMA’s exhibition sticks to showcasing women artists. It also provides context about the historic exclusion of women in the art canon via wall text.
Beverly Semmes, “Blue Gowns,” 1993, chiffon and crushed velvet, 30 x 31 1/2 x 30 feet.
The show presents over 50 works in a variety of media, by more than 30 artists representing a range of generations and cultures. The show opens with the immersive installation of Blue Gowns by Beverly Semmes. The three pieces, made from chiffon and crushed velvet, are reminiscent of cascading waterfalls. The work expertly brings together imagery and texture related to femininity and presents it in an incredibly dynamic way — seeming to unrepentantly take up space. In a world in which women are often taught or expected to minimize themselves and their needs, this room-filling work reminds us to stand resolutely in our power.
Installation view of “She Said, She Said” at the Arlington Museum of Art.
The next gallery, a section called Reclamation of the Body, brings together works by Mickalene Thomas, Tschabalala Self, and Christina Quarles, among others. The wall text calls out the use of women’s bodies by male artists throughout the history of art, with a focus on female figures being “passive objects of sexual desire.” The works on view are raw, uninhibited depictions of female forms. Thomas’ fully-clothed wrestling figures portray women in active and aggressive positions. Self’s Two Girls, which depicts two nude female figures, was created in response to a work by Henri Matisse Two Women (originally titled Two Negresses). In the wall text, Self explains, “As my practice is firmly dedicated to investigating the iconographic significance of the Black female body in Western culture, I wanted to respond to this work using my own aesthetic language as a means to interject a Black and feminine voice into the dialogue already embedded in the work.” Self’s figures stand confidently as they tower over the viewer. Quarles’s abstracted and messy forms seek to illustrate “the experience of living within a body” as opposed to looking at one. The beautifully visceral painting immediately resonated with me, offering a sense of comradery in an often overwhelming and exhausting world. It was important for the show to address the historic issue of the male gaze early on and it was reaffirming to see these depictions together.
Natalie Czech, “A poem by Repetition by Allen Ginsberg,” 2013, color prints, triptych
The Appropriation section features works by Barbara Kruger, Natalie Czech, and San Antonio-native Deborah Kass, as well as others. While Kruger’s Untitled (Money makes money) is a significant piece and uses her iconic style of red borders and bold white text, my favorite work from this section is Czech’s A poem by Repetition by Allen Ginsberg. The piece is part of a larger series that uses found texts in magazine articles and other publications. Using a kind of “blackout poetry” technique, the artist highlights words and phrases to comment on the imagery that runs alongside the original text. In this case, the text and images come from Border Crossings, a Canadian art magazine, which featured an interview with the artist Robert Longo and drawings from his Men in the Cities series. The emphasized words spell out an Allen Ginsberg poem that reads, “I made love to myself in the mirror kissing my own lips, saying I love myself, I love you more than anything.” Using a photograph of a magazine page of drawings of photographs inspired by a film, the work perfectly encapsulates ideas of appropriation and power. Ginsberg’s words positioned with these images of men can at once be seen as a critique of the male-focused art canon and perhaps a sense of liberation of a woman taking on these same words to assert self-love and self-care.
Installation view of “She Said, She Said” at the Arlington Museum of Art
Similar to these first few galleries, which focus on a specific theme, other galleries focus on self-portraiture and gestural abstraction. The self-portraiture wall text explains how the genre has been an opportunity for women to maintain their artistic autonomy. This section presents pieces by Cindy Sherman, Hayv Kahraman, Juanita McNeely, Celia Paul, Danie Cansino, Genesis Tramaine, and Kaari Upson. The abstraction text points out that while women were involved in the Abstract Expressionism and Color Field movements of the 1940s and 1950s, their contributions were often overlooked. It also points to women who, decades later, are still pushing the genre forward. Artists highlighted in this section include Maria Nepomuceno, Tamuna Sirbiladze, Martha Jungwirth, Dianna Molzan, Kennedy Yanko, and Tauba Auerbach.
Installation view of “She Said, She Said” at the Arlington Museum of Art
Rineke Dijkstra, “The Buzzclub, Liverpool, U.K./Mysterworld, Zaandam, NL,” 1996-1997, two-channel projection, 35 mm film transferred to digital video, 25 minutes 40 seconds, edition 2/8
Expanding off of the themed galleries, She Said, She Said also has rooms dedicated to singular artists. Rineke Dijkstra’s video The Buzzclub, Liverpool, U.K./Mysterworld, Zaandam, NL takes up a full room and presents short scenes of young women, separated from the club crowd in a studio space off of the main dance floor, who have been given instructions like “Imagine you want to dance, you are at the edge of the dance floor, and you move a bit.” While some women seem to hesitate, others dance more freely. The piece is intimate and vulnerable and gives a glance into club culture.
Solange Pessoa, “Catedral,” 1990-2003, hair, leather, fabric, and digital video, dimensions variable
Another solo gallery features a massive installation by Solange Pessoa. Catedral includes structures that hang from the ceiling and sprawl out over the floor. Much of the work is made from woven human and horsehair. The brown tones give the work an earthy sensibility, as if the piece were rooted in the natural world. The hair strands immediately evoke the act of braiding, an act often performed as a form of care between two individuals that also has connections to communal action. Again, as in earlier spaces of the show, we are presented with familiar and visceral materials that are transformed into larger-than-life structures, taking the intimate and building it out to create and claim a space.
In an interview on the AMA website, Alexandra Perez, the Rubell Museum Exhibitions Manager who curated She Said, She Said, shared some thoughts about the show. She noted that the exhibition “demonstrates that just as for centuries museums have been filled with only men, that women too can take up space and museums can be filled with all-women exhibitions. The exhibition also serves to demonstrate that there is no such thing as one female perspective, rather there are numerous diverse perspectives and modes of creation.”
The exhibition is a major success and does exactly what it set out to do: highlight significant contemporary women artists, speak to the historical exclusion of women in the art canon, and present a variety of voices. She Said, She Said acts as a platform to elevate and present female perspectives despite the continuing push to silence women and girls in our society.
She Said, She Said: Contemporary Artists from the Rubell Museum will be on view at the Arlington Museum of Art through November 3, 2024.
