"Women. Now." Reflect's Women's Experiences Across the Globe

Gallery September 26, 2018 Megan D Robinson

Joan Semmel, Centered, 2002. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Alexander Gray Associates.

Courtesy of the artist

Margot Pilz, HERSTORY – 36,000 Years of Goddesses and Idols, 2011/2012. Video with sound, 4 min.

Women.Now. opens at The Austrian Cultural Forum New York (ACFNY) this evening. A group exhibition showcasing contemporary female artists based in Austria and the United States, Women.Now. explores women’s changing roles through a variety of media, including paintings, pottery, textiles, drawing, mixed media projects and video. The exhibition celebrates two major anniversaries, the two hundredth anniversary of the Austrian women’s suffrage movement, and the beginning of the feminist avant-garde in 1968, and investigates the continuing impact of feminism on the art world.

This multi-generational exhibition of diverse artists investigates freedom, sexuality, lust, passion, feminine identity and its link to physical appearance, and age. This is a timely exhibition, given the #MeToo movement, the societal concerns with how digital filters are creating false beauty standards and the movement for acceptance and celebration of different body types and ages.

Courtesy of the artist and Smolka Contemporary

Uli Aigner, One Million-Women Now Edition, 2018. 49 Goblets of white china with engraving.

Courtesy of the Artist and Smolka Contemporary

Beatrice Dreux, Venus, 2015. Acryl on canvas.

Courtesy of the artist and P.P.O.W., New York

Betty Tompkins, Women’s Words, 2016. Installation, acryl on paper, acryl on canvas.

Betty Tompkins encourages the reexamination of language with her sometimes unsettling paintings, combining stark, stenciled words with colored backgrounds. Uli Aigner, committed to throwing one million pieces of porcelain tableware in her lifetime, has created engraved goblets specifically for this exhibition. Margot Pilz and Béatrice Dreux use video and painting to explore female representation through re-appropriating Neolithic goddess art, mythological women, and religious icons. Joan Semmel’s oil painting shows the feminine beauty of strength and experience. Stunning photos by Sabine Jelinek and Eva Schlegel express women’s metaphoric potential to soar.