To celebrate the 50th anniversary and expand upon narratives surrounding the historic environmental art installation and performance space, we are pleased to present WOMANHOUSE. The exhibition will be on view at 4859 Fountain Avenue, February 18 – April 16, 2022. An opening reception will take place Friday, February 18 from 5-9pm, with performances at 7pm.
As the first female-centered art presentation of its kind, Womanhouse opened in January 1972 paving the way for new subject matter, new techniques, new ideas and a new way of looking at art. This exhibition examines the spirit of experimentation and collaboration that defined west coast Feminist Art and traces the period that immediately preceded and succeeded Womanhouse from 1970 to 1976. Tracing the narratives, origins, and legacy of this historic period through Fresno Feminist Art Program, Womanhouse, Womanspace, and The Woman’s Building allows for a multi-faceted conversation about the energy and trajectories that this period of art history unleashed.
Instead of recreating historic installation works, which could serve to retrench what is already known, this exhibition looks at the larger practices of these artists—what was made before, during, and coming out of this experience. Taking a cue from the original Womanhouse invitation there will not be an artist list. Instead throughout the exhibition, we will crowdsource the names of artists who were active during this period in order to produce a living archive and digital monument.
On view will be historic works alongside ephemera and photographs from the original Womanhouse installations that explore the roots of central core imagery, collaborative practices, and performance and costuming. The exhibition aims to situate Womanhouse within a larger conversation about this underhistoricized and productive experimental period of Southern California Feminist Art History.
Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND) will serve as a cultural partner, led by Laura Hyatt, Executive Director and Hugo Cervantes, Curatorial Associate, they organized a dynamic performance and events series that will include restaging of historic performances, consciousness-raising sessions, and film screenings. These performances and events will include participants from the original Womanhouse alongside emerging artists in order to reimagine and complicate ideas relevant to our contemporary moment.
This exhibition is organized by Stefano Di Paola and Anat Ebgi Gallery and planned in close collaboration with the many participating artists as well as the following galleries: Eric Firestone Gallery, Lyles & King, and Jessica Silverman.
Exhibition Images
Press
WATCH FAITH WILDING’S PERFORMANCE OF “WAITING” FROM HER 1974 FILM WOMANHOUSE
The sensual and the spiritual collide in the paintings of Faith Wilding
Several of the newer pieces invoke illuminated letters and stained-glass windows. The intimate landscape of the female body becomes pure visual rhythm. Tree roots spread into veins. The differences between sensual and spiritual collapse, as all becomes beauty. —Leah Ollman
Wilding’s work may have been made during feminism’s second wave, but it is increasingly becoming absorbed into the fourth through recreations like these that are scattered across YouTube, Vimeo, and Tumblr. —Alicia Eler
The viewer feels enveloped in an organic space -- eerily, disconcertingly in utero. Or that was how I felt watching Ms. Wilding, swathed in a flea-market muffler not of her own knitting, assemble the structure in the unheated museum a week before the show's opening. —M.G. Lord
WOMANHOUSE was conceived as an homage to all those women who have thrown their creative energies into decorating a home, feathering a nest. For tickets, reservations and information you may call WOMANHOUSE at 666-9313." —EVERYWOMAN
In our work in the studio we have found that this is the image that we want to work with most. Again and again we make cunts, cunts and more cunts. This isn where we end again and it will probably be with us for a long time, for as Helen Diner says, "Woman is there abyss, sensing everything." —Faith Wilding
Looking at this history of nascent West Coast feminist art, at what these women made because of the communities that they had with each other, offers an important lesson: personal and political self-formation is collaborative labor, it is difficult and tender, and it is a lifelong process. — Ashton Cooper
WOMANHOUSE | Anat Ebgi Celebrates Forerunners of West Coast Feminist Art
Faith Wilding, Judy Chicago, and Mira Schor's works hang alongside one another for Anat Ebgi's celebration of the 50th anniversary of Womanhouse—the first female-centred art presentation in 1972, which paved the way for the experimental spirit of west coast feminist art. — Rory Mitchell
WOMANHOUSE | Greater LA: Check out new art exhibits
Back for its 50th anniversary, the exhibition focuses on a feminist perspective and highlights paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures from several key artists who were part of the original 1972 installation. — Lindsay Preston Zappas
WOMANHOUSE | Your Concise Los Angeles Art Guide for March 2022
Anat Ebgi and LAND are revisiting WOMANHOUSE, tracing a history of feminist art in the West Coast and how it continues to reverberate today. — Matt Stromberg and Elisa Wouk Almino
WOMANHOUSE | 16 Standout Gallery Exhibitions to See in L.A.
An exhibition exploring the spirit of experimentation and collaboration that fueled West Coast Feminist art in the first half of the ’70s, with ephemera and photographs from the original “Womanhouse,” as well as other work from the period. — Sarah Cascone
Di Paola’s curatorial approach is brave and impactful. By bringing together a selection of work made before, during and after the 1972 exhibition—including work by some of the core CalArts students as well as their collaborators—Di Paola engages and connects early feminist practices and strategies more broadly, emphasizing the collaborative and profound legacy of “Womanhouse” and the Feminist Art Program. — Lauren Guilford
“Revisiting the Famed Feminist Exhibition Womanhouse with an Intersectional Lens”
Fifty years later, “Womanhouse” is back. Anat Ebgi is celebrating the West Coast’s defining blueprint for feminist art while reflecting and expanding upon it. What was once subversive can seem quaint against our current cultural landscape, but this show extols the 1972 exhibition for its triumphs as it coaxes it into the present context. — Neyat Yohannes
