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We are honored to dedicate this exhibition to Mary Beth Edelson (1933-2021), the celebrated American artist, activist, and an originator of the Feminist Art movement.
An early eco-feminist, Edelson described her 1970's Rituals with my Children photographs saying: “I was trying to tie them to the Earth, to help them feel in a direct way that nature is not outside, but a part of them.” In this exhibition we juxtapose two bodies of work: Edelson’s iconic Woman Rising Series and her powerful but lesser known Black Spring Series. The Woman Rising Series are based on private performance rituals where we often see Edelson at the water’s edge, transformed through art and feminist ritual and connected with the earth, sky and sea.
The Black Spring Series originated from Edeslon’s deepening commitment to ecology and to the Green Movement of the 1980’s. The title and tone of these multi-layered works reference the Exxon Valdes oil spill of March 1989. Exhibiting this work first at Washington Artist Projects (WPA) in D.C. with the installation, Black Spring: Room for New Beginnings, Edelson used symbolic language to express grief as well as hope for the future through action. She wrote: “We are also reminded of some of the most vulnerable animals in the Exxon spill.” Notice the titles of the works which reference “taking the temperature” (of the time? of the earth?) and the idea that a “Lifesaver” is needed in the face of human destruction.
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Mary Beth Edelson is a celebrated American artist, activist, and originator of the Feminist Art movement. For the past 50 years she has created iconic artworks –ranging from photography, painting, sculpture and drawing to performance, book/print making, collages and murals –often using her own body as support and subject matter.
Edelson exhibited at A.I.R. Gallery in the 1970’s and founded numerous other feminist art projects including the seminal Conference for Women in the Visual Arts (CWVA) held at the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C. in 1972 and the follow-up seminar at the Smithsonian, Washington, D.C. in 1973. She is a founder of Heresies Magazineand WAC (Women’s Action Coalition). In 1994 Edelson produced Combat Zone: Campaign Hq. Against Domestic Violence, sponsored by Creative Time.
Edelson was the subject of a retrospectives at Kunsthalle Münster and Malmö Kunstmuseum, Sweden, the later which traveled to Migros Museum, Zürich (2006). Edelson has had numerous solo shows internationally and was included in important survey exhibitions including “Painting 2.0,” Museum Brandhorst, Munich; “WACK! Art of the Feminist Revolution,” MOCA, Los Angeles; “NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star,” New Museum, NY; “Greater New York 2015,” MoMA PS1, New York; “Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York; “Mothers of Invention,” Mumok Museum of Contemporary Art, Vienna; “Coming to Power: 25 Years of Sexually X-Plicit Art by Women,” David Zwirner Gallery, New York; and the traveling survey, “Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s: Works from the Verbund Collection.”
Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY; Tate Modern, London; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY; Walker Art Center, MN; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA; Malmö Kunstmuseum, Sweden; and Sammlung Verbund, Vienna, among others.
