The Week in Abstract Art – Exploring the Work of Female Abstract Artists

Jun 2, 2016

Zoology acknowledges a multiplicity of genders. More than a dozen animal species can even autonomously alter their gender. Facebook offers users 58 gender identifications. Even sluggish politicians are gradually accepting the wide range of gender variants among their constituency. So does gender matter in art? We think it shouldn’t. But historically, institutions have often disenfranchised female artists, minimized their accomplishments or ignored them altogether. Happily this generation is correcting that trend. Today we draw your attention to six current exhibitions of female abstract artists. Though we’re happy to see female abstract artists getting their due respect, we hope that instead of placing artificial importance on gender viewers seek the universal qualities present in their work. For example, masculinity and femininity are universal abstract qualities that have nothing to do with male and female. They often exist together in the same work, and even in the same artist.

Women of Abstract Expressionism at the Denver Art Museum

12 June – 25 September 2016

This exhibition features more than 50 major works painted by female abstract expressionists in the 1940s and 1950s. Amazingly, these artists (Mary Abbott, Jay DeFeo, Perle Fine, Helen Frankenthaler, Sonia Gechtoff, Judith Godwin, Grace Hartigan, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Deborah Remington and Ethel Schwabacher) have never been exhibited together before.

Nasreen Mohamedi at the Met Breuer

Now through 5 June 2016

You just have a few more days to see Nasreen Mohamedi’s first museum retrospective in the US. One of the most important artists of 20th Century India, Mohamedi created delicate, hypnotic line drawings that seem both minimal and scientifically complex. This exhibition includes more than 130 works in addition to excerpts from Mohamedi’s diaries.

Mary Heilmann at Whitechapel Gallery, London

8 June – 21 August 2016

California’s mythos is that it’s colorful, light-filled and somehow both profound and laidback at the same time. Mary Heilmann: Looking at Pictures happily validates those beliefs. A native San Franciscan who studied art at UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley in the 1960s, Heilmann has been creating colorful, light-filled, profound-yet-laidback work for nearly five decades. This comprehensive exhibition features her geometric abstract paintings, glazed ceramic objects, large-scale abstract canvases and a slideshow of her life set to music.

Yayoi Kusama at Victoria Miro, London

Now through 30 July 2016

Famous for her Mirror Rooms, Yayoi Kusama’s work is currently on an unprecedented world tour. Everywhere, fans line up around the block to experience Kusama’s transformative installations and paintings. To see some of Kusama’s new work, visit Yayoi Kusama: sculptures, paintings & mirror rooms at London’s Victoria Miro, an exhibition encompassing all three of the gallery’s locations and its waterside garden. The exhibition is free of charge.

Elizabeth Neel at Pilar Corrias, London

Through 17 June 2016

Elizabeth Neel’s large-scale, gestural abstract paintings evoke a powerful sense of movement and impact. They connect directly with something psychological, hidden and unmistakably modern. The exhibition Elizabeth Neel: Vulture and Chicks features new works by this Vermont-born, New York abstract artist.

Tess Jaray at 67 Jermyn Street, London

Through 19 June 2016

Known for her large-scale public works, Tess Jaray excels in examining how lines interact with and transform space. Now curator Megan Piper presents an intimate exhibition of new small-scale works by this British artist. Tess Jaray: Dark & Light is approachable, personal and serene. Fans of Jaray’s public installations will find that these works bring new and deeper context to that oeuvre.

Featured Image: Elizabeth Neel - Almanac, 2011