Upcoming Exhibitions
Learn about exhibitions coming to NMWA soon!
SEP 19 2019–JAN 20 2020
Judy Chicago—The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction
Visually striking and emotionally charged, the newest body of work by feminist icon Judy Chicago continues her commitment to challenge the status quo and advocate for change. Nearly 40 works of painted porcelain and glass, as well as two large bronze sculptures, comprise The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction. Through this series, the artist reflects on her own mortality and appeals for compassion and justice for all earthly creatures affected by human greed. Chicago’s bold, graphic style viscerally communicates the intense emotion she experienced while contemplating her own death as well as the death of entire species. The exhibition is organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts and made possible by the MaryRoss Taylor Exhibition Fund.
SEP 19 2019–JAN 20 2020
Live Dangerously
As a pendant to Judy Chicago’s reflection on the transience of earthly life, this exhibition features fierce, dreamy, and witty images of the female figure integrated into Earth’s terrain. Photographs by 12 artists depict women claiming their natural environments—balancing on blocks of ice, struggling against the wind on ocean shores, and scrambling to the tops of precariously tall trees. The presentation includes Janaina Tschäpe’s series of one hundred large-scale photographs, “100 Little Deaths” (1996–2002), exhibited together for the first time. In Tschäpe’s immersive installation, images show the artist lying down in fields and on beaches, pathways, terraces, and forest floors in locations around the world. Earthly life comes to an end, but Live Dangerously illuminates the planet’s surface as a stunning stage for human drama.
OCT 11 2019–JAN 05 2020
Women Artists of the Dutch Golden Age
This focus exhibition examines the lives and works of several highly successful artists in the Netherlands during the 17th and early 18th centuries, including Judith Leyster and Rachel Ruysch. The Dutch Golden Age was a period of unprecedented economic growth. A rising middle class of wealthy merchants fueled the demand for paintings and prints of still-lifes, portraits, and scenes of everyday life. Becoming an artist during this time was often part of the family business, for both men and women. While women faced more obstacles than their male counterparts did, this exhibition reveals that women of this era not only succeeded but also excelled as artists, pushing the boundaries of what was possible in art and in life.
2020 (DATES TBA)
Women to Watch 2020
Women to Watch features emerging and underrepresented women artists that focus on a specific medium or theme chosen by NMWA’s curators. The series is a dynamic collaboration between the museum and participating outreach committees. Each committee works with NMWA staff and curators in the committee regions to select the artists whose work will be featured in the exhibition at the museum. Women to Watch 2020 will be the sixth installment of the series since it began in 2008.
