Apr 14 to Aug 11, 2024

Visionary artists reimagine the past, present alternate realities, and inspire audiences to create different futures. During the past few years, our world has been transformed by a global pandemic, advocacy for social reform, and political division. How have these extraordinary times inspired artists? Works by the 28 artists featured in New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024 explore these ideas from perspectives that shift across geographies, cultural viewpoints, and time.

One of the first major exhibitions to follow NMWA’s reopening after renovation, New Worlds will immerse visitors in the museum’s renewed spaces. It is the seventh and largest installment of the museum’s Women to Watch exhibition series. Presented every three years, Women to Watch is a dynamic collaboration between the museum and its network of outreach committees. The committees participating in New Worlds worked with curators in their regions to create shortlists of artists. From this list, NMWA curators selected the artists and works to exhibit at the museum in 2024.

New Worlds features works by Irina Kirchuk (Argentina), Saskia Jordá (Arizona), Aimée Papazian (Arkansas), Nicki Green (Northern California), April Banks (Southern California), Meryl McMaster (Canada), Francisca Rojas Pohlhammer (Chile), Ana María Hernando (Colorado), Randa Maroufi (France), Marianna Dixon Williams (Georgia), Sophia Pompéry (Germany), Mona Cliff (Greater Kansas City Area), Rajyashri Goody (India), Hannan Abu-Hussein (Israel), Irene Fenara (Italy), Ai Hasegawa (Japan), Daniela Rivera (Massachusetts), SHAN Wallace (Mid-Atlantic Region), Alexis McGrigg (Mississippi), Eliza Naranjo Morse (New Mexico), Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya (New York), Migiwa Orimo (Ohio), Graciela Arias (Peru), Marina Vargas (Spain), Arely Morales (Texas), Noémie Goudal (U.K.), Molly Vaughan (Washington), and Sarah Ortegon (Wyoming).

Three sets of different colored rope – beige, gray, and black – are equidistantly nailed to a wall. On the floor at the bottom of each set of rope is a pair of individualized white plaster cast feet.

Saskia Jordá, Raíces (Roots), 2019; Felt, thread, cotton yarn, plaster, and wooden spools, 78 x 64 x 16 in.; © Saskia Jordá, Photo by Claire A Warden

Exhibition Sponsors

New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024 is organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts and sponsored by participating committees in Argentina, Arizona, Arkansas, Northern California, Southern California, Canada, Chile, Colorado, France, Georgia, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Greater Kansas City Area, Massachusetts, the Mid-Atlantic Region, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Peru, Spain, Texas, the United Kingdom, Washington, and Wyoming.

The exhibition is made possible by the Clara M. Lovett Emerging Artists Fund and the Sue J. Henry and Carter G. Phillips Exhibition Fund, with major support provided by Patti and George White, Share Fund, Linda Mann, the Pennsylvania Committee of NMWA, San Francisco Advocacy for NMWA, and the UK Friends of NMWA. Additional funding is provided by Robyn D. Collins, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, the Honorable Mary V. Mochary, Miller Shah LLP, and S&P Global. Further support comes from Daiwa Securities Group Inc.; Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc.; S&R Evermay; Saffronart Foundation; S M B C Nikko Securities Inc.; Shiseido Company, Limited; Sony Group Corporation; Suntory Holdings Limited; Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings, Inc.; THE TOKYO CLUB; Noriko Kashiwagi; and Ayako Weissman.

The catalogue for New Worlds is supported by members and friends of the Wyoming Committee of NMWA, in memory of Lisa Claudy Fleischman.

The museum extends appreciation to the Embassy of France in the United States with the support of Villa Albertine, the British Embassy Washington, the Embassy of Peru in the United States, the Embassy of the Argentine Republic, the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany Washington, and the Embassy of Italy with the Italian Cultural Institute of Washington.