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Two women stand in front of two fabric quilts hanging on a gallery wall.
NMWA Tickets
National Museum of Women in the Arts

Telling Secrets: Codes, Captions, and Conundrums in Contemporary Art

A horizontal canvas combines collaged paper, such as a scrap of a U.S. map, comic strip, and pictographs; cloth swatches; scrawled and dripped paint; and phrases like “It takes hard work to keep racism alive” and “Oh! Zone.” The work’s title appears in red paint right of center.
Oct 9, 2009, to Jan 10, 2010

Exhibition Note

Information about this exhibition is limited.

Featured Artists

Frida Baranek
Frida Baranek is one of a generation of sculptors using industrial materials to comment on industrialization and the health of Brazil’s environment.
Leonora Carrington
Through her paintings and sculptures, Leonora Carrington often explored notions of femininity in the whimsical, dreamlike style of Surrealism.
Black-and-white photograph of a light-skinned adult woman with dark curly hair. She sits with her back to the viewer, looking over her left shoulder, her face in profile, surrounded by art supplies. A painting of nuns in a boat on rough seas sits on an easel in front of her.
Lesley Dill
Lesley Dill, a painter, printmaker, sculptor, photographer, and performance artist with an abiding interest in language, typically works with natural materials.
Black-and-white studio portrait of a smiling light-skinned adult woman with medium-length blond hair. She wears round glasses and a black turtleneck sweater.
Hung Liu
Hung Liu blended Chinese and Western artistic influences to explore Chinese history and culture, gender, identity, and memory.
A light-medium-skinned older woman leans her elbow against an interior marble balustrade. Her grey and black hair is pulled back, and she wears a black long-sleeve top and drop earrings, a red necklace, a red ring, and a red heart-shaped lapel pin.
Shirin Neshat
Shirin Neshat’s powerful photographs and video installations illuminate the gender and cultural conflicts of her native Iran.
Black and white photo of a woman sitting next to a vase of lillies. Her eyes are lined in thick black pencil, which matches her dark brows. Her tiered metal necklace and dark v-neck shirt accenuate the skin of her chest. Her dark hair is pulled back and she smiles slightly.
Alison Saar
Alison Saar creates artworks that frequently transform found objects to reflect themes of cultural and social identity, history, and religion.
A light-skinned, adult woman speaking with one hand extended and the other touching her neck in a white gallery filled with her colorful artworks depicting African-American women. She has curly gray hair, glasses, and wears a simple, black, sleeveless top and a necklace.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith created work that addresses the myths of her ancestors in the context of current issues facing Native Americans.
A black-and-white photograph of a light-skinned adult woman with long dark hair, shown in full face from the chest up, standing in front of a light-colored wall. She wears large earrings and a black turtleneck top.
Pamela Spitzmueller
One of the most admired book artists in the US, Pamela Spitzmueller was also a professional book conservator.
A black-and-white photograph of a smiling Pamela Spitzmueller, a light-skinned woman with eyeglasses, in a conservation lab. Her hair is parted in the middle and pulled back, revealing dangling earrings. She wears an ikat-woven jacket.