Bronx-based photographer Samantha Box (b. 1977, Kingston, Jamaica) navigates social and cultural landscapes through complex images exploring race, gender, class, and sexuality. Black-and-white documentary photographs from her series “Invisible” depict New York City’s LGBTQIA+ youth of color. The series reveals community-defined spaces and chosen family bonds that work to counter her subjects’ experiences with homophobia and transphobia. In vibrant staged images, Box’s ongoing studio practice, “Caribbean Dreams,” shifts inward, as the artist articulates her own diasporic Indo-Afro-Caribbean identity through personal and historical narratives.

Suchitra Mattai (b. 1973, Georgetown, Guyana) layers vintage and contemporary materials into three- and two-dimensional works about identity and belonging. Drawing from personal memories as well as stories passed down through generations of her family, Mattai seeks to fill in the gaps of recorded history, focusing on the often-omitted experiences of women and people of color. Her art blends techniques of collage, painting, sculpture, and fiber arts, making visible the presence of Indian women in the history of Guyana and the Indian diaspora in the West. This exhibition pairs Mattai’s recent work with historical objects, sparking a visual conversation that questions binaries such as East and West, art and craft, and history and memory.

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.

Never-before-exhibited contemporary sculptures dangle from the ceiling, cascade down walls, and extend far beyond their footprint on the gallery floor. Process-focused sculptures were pioneered by women creators in the mid-20th century, and they continually expand and redefine this medium. They illuminate how artists use scale and the allure of materials for maximum impact. Towering artworks on view feature an array of found objects such as silver-plated vessels, hair combs, ostrich eggs, and parasols, as well as essential materials ranging from aluminum to wool.

“Weeping” paintings and prints by Hung Liu (1948 to 2021) features signature paint drips, layers of color, and cultural symbols that pay homage to overlooked figures in history, predominantly vulnerable women and children from the artist’s native China. Liu lived through Mao Zedong’s totalitarian regime during the Cultural Revolution before immigrating to the U.S., and her work reveals boundless empathy for the plights of the working class. Drawing inspiration from a collection of vintage photographs that she discovered on a return visit to China in the 1990s, she portrays migrant laborers, sex workers, female soldiers, and refugees with dignity, endurance, strength, and courage.

Nine new works by celebrated book artists inaugurate NMWA’s new Learning Commons and its reinvigorated Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center. Some of the artists reflect on NMWA as a special place for art by women. Others remind viewers that creativity is expressed in other environs, from small interiors to vast outdoor geographies. Above all, the artists’ books celebrate the varied spaces where women’s creativity blooms. Participating artists include Alisa Banks, Adjoa J. Burrowes, Julie Chen, Suzanne Coley, IBé Crawley, Maricarmen Solis Diaz, Colette Fu, Kerry McAleer-Keeler, and María Verónica San Martín.

The Entrance of the Emperor Sigismond into Mantua (1675), an extraordinary series of 25 prints by 17th-century French artist Antoinette Bouzonnet-Stella (1641 to 1676) is presented at NMWA for the first time in almost 15 years. The exhibition explores the circumstances of the work’s creation and focuses on Bouzonnet-Stella’s life in Paris, where she lived and worked with her uncle, artist Jacques Stella, in his prestigious lodgings in the Louvre. There, she produced copies of his paintings and accepted commissions for works such as The Entrance of the Emperor Sigismond into Mantua, her best-known work.

Enjoy a close-up look into the practices and perspectives of eight contemporary collection artists via short documentary-style videos. Presented in NMWA’s ground-floor Long Gallery, these captivating short films welcome visitors to the renewed museum. The installation’s intimate and immersive design sparks curiosity, inspires advocacy, and encourages slow looking during visitors’ exploration of the museum. The videos will premiere throughout the year. 

Lookout: Katharina Cibulka, the museum’s second public art installation during its building renovation, prompts viewers to consider what inspires their feminism. Cibulka covers the museum’s north-facing façade with one of her monumental “SOLANGE” (German for “as long as”) nets. In vivid pink tulle, the artist cross-stitches witty, gender-equity focused messages across scaffolded buildings. For NMWA, Cibulka and her team developed a sentence 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.”

Lookout: MISS CHELOVE is the first in a series of public art installations on the exterior of the National Museum of Women in the Arts during its building renovation. Reseeded: A Forest Floor Flow is a four-story mural printed on mesh fabric and created for NMWA by Washington, D.C.-based artist MISS CHELOVE. Depicting a woman immersed in botanicals, the image alludes to the resurgence of the natural world during the pandeemic and the critical role of women in ecological activism. 

Organized by NMWA and on view at the American University Museum, Positive Fragmentation features more than 100 works by 21 artists from the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation collection. Employing a wide range of printmaking processes, artists use fragmentation—both literal and lyrical—to explode concepts such as gender, race, and the environment.

The museum has partnered with Her Flag, a nationwide art and travel project created by artist Marilyn Artus. Her Flag marks the 100th-anniversary year of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which enshrined women’s right to vote within the text of the U.S. Constitution.