Lookout: Katharina Cibulka

White gauzy fabric hangs in front of scaffolding surrounding a city building. Bold magenta letters on the fabric read, “As long as generations change but our struggles stay the same, I will be a feminist.” White gauzy fabric hangs in front of scaffolding surrounding a city building. Bold magenta letters on the fabric read, “As long as generations change but our struggles stay the same, I will be a feminist.”
Oct 24, 2022, to Apr 30, 2023

NMWA’s Lookout project presents commanding artworks across the scaffolding that surrounds the museum during its building renovation. Its second installation, Lookout: Katharina Cibulka, invites viewers to share their ideals and contemplate what equality looks like to them.

Austrian artist Katharina Cibulka covers NMWA’s north-facing façade with one of her monumental “SOLANGE” (German for “as long as”) works, a series that addresses gender-based inequity and social power structures. In vivid pink tulle on white mesh fabric, Cibulka and her team cross-stitch poetic and witty declarations, such as “As long as the art market is a boys’ club, I will be a feminist,” “As long as he makes the cash while I work for change, I will be a feminist,” and “As long as women’s power is an underrated energy source, I will be a feminist.” For more information, explore the SOLANGE website.

For each of Cibulka’s site-specific “SOLANGE” works, the artist considers the local environment and community while developing the phrase for that location. She seeks public input to understand the concerns of community members and neighbors. Previous statements have addressed topics such as income inequality, family structures, abuse of power, and the art world. Cibulka and her team developed a sentence for NMWA that spotlights marginalized groups who must repeatedly, across generations, demand equal rights: “As long as generations change but our struggles stay the same, I will be a feminist.”

Through Lookout, NMWA continues to champion women through the arts, while also signaling the powerful transformation underway within the building. Lookout: Katharina Cibulka is the artist’s first installation in the United States.

White gauzy fabric hangs in front of scaffolding surrounding a city building. Bold magenta letters on the fabric read, “As long as generations change but our struggles stay the same, I will be a feminist.”

Katharina Cibulka, SOLANGE #27 (installation view, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.), 2022; Mesh scaffolding net, tulle, and cable ties, 82 x 82 ft. (25 x 25 meters); © 2022 Katharina Cibulka; Photo by Kevin Allen

Exhibition Sponsors

Lookout: Katharina Cibulka is organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The project is generously supported by Share Fund and the members of NMWA.

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    SOLANGE at NMWA

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    Explore how Katharina Cibulka and her team created SOLANGE #27 through artist interviews and video clips of the process.

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    Get a behind-the-scenes look at the process that Katharina Cibulka and her team used to create the NMWA “SOLANGE” net.

    Installation Video

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    Watch the installation of SOLANGE #27 in this timelapse video.