02.17.08 through 05.10.08

The first comprehensive, historical exhibition to examine the international foundations and legacy of feminist art, WACK! focuses on 1965 to 1980, the crucial period during which the majority of feminist activism and art-making occurred in North America. The exhibition includes the work of approximately 100 artists from the United States, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Comprising work in a broad range of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, film, video and performance art, the exhibition is organized around themes based on media, geography, formal concerns, and collective aesthetic and political impulses. The exhibition is curated by MOCA Curator Connie Butler and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

Artists in the Exhibition

WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution
edited by Cornelia Butler and Lisa Gabrielle Mark
Co-published by The MIT Press

In the 1970s, women changed the way art was made and talked about forever. WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution is a long-awaited international survey that chronicles the impact of the feminist revolution on art made between 1965 and 1980, featuring groundbreaking works by artists such as Chantal Akerman, Lynda Benglis, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Valie Export, Mary Heilman, Sanja Ivekovic, Ana Mendieta, and Annette Messager, who came of age during that period — as well as others such as Louise Bourgeois, Judy Chicago, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Lucy Lippard, Alice Neel, and Yoko Ono, whose careers were well established.

The book opens with a rich, full-color plate section in which works by over 120 artists are grouped into themes, including Abstraction, Body as Medium, Family Stories, Gender Performance, Knowledge as Power, and Making Art History. Highlights include the figurative paintings of Joan Semmel; the performance and film collaborations of Sally Potter and Rose English; the untitled film stills of Cindy Sherman; and the large-scale, craft-based sculptures of Magdalena Abakanowicz. Written entries on each artist offer key biographical and descriptive information, while accompanying essays by leading critics, art historians, and scholars offer a fresh look at feminist art practice from a cross-cultural perspective. Topics such as the relationship between American and European feminism, feminism and New York abstraction, women’s art under the Pinochet dictatorship, and mapping a global feminism provide a broad social context for the artworks themselves.

Working in a diverse range of media, including painting, sculpture, installation, performance, photography, film, and video, the artists in WACK! made feminism one of the most important influences on art of the late twentieth century.

04.04.08 through 07.13.08

Arguably the most internationally acclaimed artist to emerge from Asia in the postwar era, Takashi Murakami effortlessly navigates between the worlds of fine art and popular culture and is best known for his cartoon-like, “superflat” style. This large-scale retrospective includes key selections that span the early 1990s to the present. More than 90 works in various media: painting, sculpture, installation, and film; will be installed in three sections, occupying over 20,000 square feet of exhibition space at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. The first portion will be an immersive, theatrically lit environment, recreating the annual “Wonder Festival” comic market convention. It will feature many of Murakami’s acclaimed large-scale otaku-inspired figure projects of the late 1990s, including a new version of Second Mission Project Ko2 (2000-07). The second section will comprise a grid-like shelving display of all of Murakami’s merchandise, including multiples, collectibles, and maquettes, among other items. The final section will trace Murakami’s artistic development since 1991, including early works that engage branding and the evolution of his signature character, DOB. Of particular importance will be the premiere of a new animated film, kaikai & kiki, and the debut of Oval Buddha, an enormous self-portrait sculpture in the guise of a Buddha. The exhibition is organized by MOCA Chief Curator Paul Schimmel with Project Coordinator Mika Yoshitake and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES

BLACK ON WHITE, GRAY ASCENDING

Dec 1,2007-Mar23,2008

YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES (YHCHI) is a two-artist collective based in Seoul, South Korea. Using Flash animation techniques, they create fast-moving, text-based artworks that are synchronized with original scores. Using a seemingly simple format—texts on monochromatic backgrounds—YHCHI weaves complex and evocative narratives. Invoking the genre of film noir, and the hard-boiled literary styles of Raymond Chandler and Phillip K. Dick, YHCHI’s imaginative, witty and often politically pointed narratives offer layered and compelling stories in which identities are assumed and discarded, and ideologies of all persuasions are held up and questioned.

For BLACK ON WHITE, GRAY ASCENDING, their project for the New Museum, the artists have expanded their usual single-channel format to create an unprecedented seven-channel installation that tells a chilling story of abduction and assassination from seven separate points of view, set to an eerily laid-back bossa nova score. The installation is at once as nostalgic as a 1960s suspense film and as current as the daily headlines.