More Feminists! More Art!

American women, postmodern pioneers
By Evelyn Shih
Great Ladies Changing into Butterflies, by Judy Chicago

It is not enough to say that women artists have become a major part of the art scene: Their arrival as creators and auteurs changed the game forever, states a joint exhibit at the Morris Museum in Morristown and the Hunterdon Museum in Clinton.

"How American Women Invented Postmodernism: 1970-1975," curated by Rutgers University professors Judith Brodsky and Ferris Olin, has been touring university art galleries and other venues around the state. The Morris-Hunterdon exhibit is the last scheduled showing.

Why the specific window of years?

"Those are the dates where the germinal formation of the feminist movement really got under way," said Olin. "As we look at contemporary art practiced today, so much of what these women were doing that was innovative from 1970 to 1975 has become standard operating practice. But there is not so much recognition that they were the pioneers."

According to Brodsky, feminist artists such as Judy Chicago and Sylvia Sleigh introduced new ways of looking at the female and male body, incorporated decorative materials in high art concepts and reintroduced narrative art after a long period of dominance by abstraction. The show also features groundbreaking performance art, presented in the form of DVD projections.
Ferris Olin, left, and Judith Brodsky, right. Photo courtesy of the Women and Art Institute at Rutgers University.

"How American Women" is the inaugural exhibit of the ongoing national Feminist Art Project (2005-09), based at Rutgers' Institute for Feminist Art.

"We now have a perspective of 35 years since the beginning of feminist art, and have many anniversaries to celebrate," said Olin.

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WHAT: "How American Women Invented Postmodernism: 1970-1975."
WHEN: Through June 3. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday, to 8 p.m. Thursday, 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Free opening reception 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday (Morris Museum); 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday (Hunterdon Museum of Art).
WHERE: Morris Museum, 6 Normandy Heights Road, Morristown; 973-971-3700 or morris museum.org. Hunterdon Museum of Art, 7 Lower Center St., Clinton; 908-735-8415 or hunter donartmuseum.org.
HOW MUCH: $7, children and seniors $5, children under 3 free. Free admission for all 1 to 8 p.m. Thursdays (Morris Museum). $3 (Hunterdon Museum of Art).