Five Woman-Focused Art Exhibitions on our Radar for 2024
From iconic authors to inspiring designers, these exhibitions featuring female creators are experiences you don't want to miss.
Explore “Women Dressing Women” in New York City (Through March 3, 2024)
The Met’s Costume Institute presented its fall 2023 exhibition with an exploration of women fashion designers–from 1910 to today. Featuring the work of over 70 designers, from the iconic to up-and-coming designers, “Women Dressing Women” dives into the evolutionary (and oftentimes revolutionary) history of women designers who create looks for the female form.
Find “Infinite Love” in San Francisco (Through Sept. 7, 2024)
Yayoi Kusama’s wildly popular “Infinite Love” is now at San Francisco’s MoMa. The traveling exhibit has taken the art world by storm since she first debuted her first Infinity Mirror Room, Love is Calling, in 2013. Now at SFMoma, her second Infinity Mirror Room, Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love (2023), is also on display. The wildly imaginative kaleidoscope of colors and light are what makes Kusama one of the most celebrated artists living and working today.
Interpret the “South American Dream” in Miami (March 23, 2023 - July 28, 2024)
Artist Marcela Cantuária’s artistic career has been devoted to highlighting the plight of female figures as they navigate regional, international and social boundaries in Latin America. But the Rio de Janeiro-born artist often brings in symbols of tarot and astrology to show the beauty and mystical qualities in these social justice battles. In her first solo exhibition in the U.S., “Marcela Cantuária: The South American Dream,” the 33-year-old focuses on three new, colorful paintings that highlight the work of South American women activists and environmentalists standing up for their various country’s lands. According to the museum’s description of the installation, “While her research highlights where struggles and injustices lie, her paintings point to the beauty of the fight that often persists in these stories; thus, the paintings become monuments for iconic South American figures who, despite dangers and devastating odds, fought for their visions.”
“Dress Up” in Boston (April 13-Sept. 2, 2024)
MFABoston is paying homage to the seemingly simple act of putting on a dress. But any woman paying attention knows that, like the exhibit’s description says, “Our choice of dress can make a political statement, express a mood, or communicate personal identities.” With more than 100 works on display from the MFA’s permanent collection (including dresses, jewelry and accessories, plus illustrations and photographs), “Dress Up” examines the meaning of fashion.
Observe “Brilliant Exiles” in Washington, DC (April 26, 2024 – February 23, 2025)
From art, literature, design, publishing, music, fashion, journalism, theater, and dance, there was an entire cohort of rebellious women who left America in search of a more bohemian lifestyle in Paris. From the turn of the 20th century to the outbreak of World War II, these women (such as Josephine Baker, Isadora Duncan, Zelda Fitzgerald, Loïs Mailou Jones, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Anaïs Nin, Gertrude Stein, Ethel Waters, and Anna May Wong) pursued their passions, and in turn had an outsize effect on the culture of Paris, as well as on American women back home. On view at Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, the first-of-its-kind exhibit, titled “Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris 1900-1939,” explores how the Parisian lifestyle continues to have an impact on American women even today.
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