NMWA PRESENTS FOREFRONT: Chakaia Booker May 26–September 4, 2006
WASHINGTON—The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) revives its FOREFRONT series with an exhibition of large-scale works by contemporary sculptor Chakaia Booker (May 26–September 4, 2006). Adopting rubber tires as her primary medium, Booker’s work blends Abstract Expressionist painting with found object assemblage.
The FOREFRONT series at NMWA consists of single gallery exhibitions featuring an emerging to mid-career artist who has begun to develop an international reputation, yet whose work has rarely if ever been seen in Washington, D.C. The last FOREFRONT exhibition featured Hollis Sigler in the fall of 1993. FOREFRONT: Chakaia Booker (May 26–September 4, 2006) marks the 200th exhibition for NMWA. (The 1st: American Women Artists: 1830-1930, was on view at NMWA from April 7, 1987 through June 14, 1987).
NMWA Deputy Director and Chief Curator Dr. Susan Fisher Sterling explained, “This is an important exhibition for NMWA. It speaks to the museum’s mission of supporting and recognizing contemporary women artists. Chakaia’s work with recycled tires is not only an aesthetically satisfying material, but also a source for environmental, political, and cultural metaphor.”
Booker’s installation consists of five large-scale works ranging in size from 6 to 20 feet. These massive assemblages reveal Booker’s continued sculptural exploration of the African American experience, feminism, and the work ethic in America. Through her “post-industrial” objects made from automobile tires, Booker also develops her own version of environmental consciousness and rehabilitation. At the same time, her works comment upon the industrial machine and what it makes of men and women and their relationships—‘the ensuing conditions of unmet needs and desires,’ as she calls it. Ultimately, her sculptures are barb-tongued images in which formal innovations dovetail with force exercised and force absorbed.
Describing her art Booker said, “It’s about getting the energy and feeling for something. I consider the things that I make as art that have information in it. We need a foundation of rules, discipline, and structure, but the rules are made to be elaborated and expanded upon by exerting energy to create something new.”
Born in Newark, New Jersey and currently living in New York City, Booker earned an undergraduate degree in sociology from Rutgers University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from City College of New York. She has had solo exhibitions at the Neuberger Museum of Art, the Akron Art Museum, the Marlborough Gallery, and her work is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She participated in the Whitney Biennial in 2000, in the “Twentieth Century American Sculpture” exhibition at the White House in 1996, the Storm King Art Center in 2003 and 2004, the 48th Corcoran Biennial in Washington, D.C., and most recently at the Carl Solway Gallery.
Booker has received awards from Anonymous Was A Woman (2000), The American Academy of Arts and Letters (2001), the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2002), and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (2005).
Admission to NMWA is $8 for adults, $6 for students and visitors 60 and over, and free for youth 18 and under. NMWA Members receive free admission. Free Community Days are the first Wednesday and Sunday of every month.
Photo Captions and Credit
Left:
Wrench (Wench) II, 2001
Rubber tie, steel, wood
90” x 46” x 21”
Courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York
Photographer: Nelson Tejada
Right: Chakaia Booker in her studio
Photographer: Nelson Tejada
About the Women’s Museum
The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), founded in 1981 and opened in 1987, is the only museum dedicated solely to celebrating the achievements of women in the visual, performing and literary arts. The museum’s permanent collection features 3,000 works from the 16th century to the present created by more than 800 artists; including Mary Cassatt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, Lee Krasner and Louise Bourgeois, along with special collections of 18th-century silver tableware and botanical prints. The Museum also conducts multidisciplinary programs for diverse audiences and maintains a Library and Research Center accessible to the public by appointment. The Museum is located at 1250 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., in a landmark building near the White House. It is open Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. and Sunday, noon–5 p.m. For information, call 202.783.5000 or visit the Museum’s Web site at www.nmwa.org.
Exhibition Sponsorship This exhibition is made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, The Benjamin Rosen Family Foundation, and the members of NMWA, with special thanks to the Marlborough Gallery, New York.
