“Women have been sitting inside their homes for millions of years so that now even the walls are imbued with their creative power” – that’s what Virginia Woolf stated many years ago.
Long underrepresented, women artists now can benefit from excellent visibility during so-called All-women exhibitions. The mobilisation of museum directors makes it possible to re-evaluate the importance of women artists, despite prejudices. Collective exhibitions of women artists promote the idea of women’s rights and gender equality. If you want to learn some interesting facts about all-women exhibitions, read this article.
A History Of Feminist Art: Womanhouse
In 1972, co-directors of the CalArts Feminist Art Program (California School of the Arts), Miriam Schapiro and Judith Chicago set up the Womanhouse project. Not finding places in which they have permission to teach, they choose to mount an exhibition in a house dedicated to destruction. With the agreement of the owner of a Hollywood villa and the participation of twenty-seven student artists, the temporary exhibition of Womanhouse emerged.
Women artists more and more exposed
Presently, there are more and more women-only places, events, and exhibitions. All over the world, there are hotels, restaurants, and cafes dedicated especially and exclusively for women. There are also exhibitions only devoted to women artists.
All-women exhibitions help women to gain more popularity in the artistic environment. The creation of exclusively feminine displays presents female artists in an entirely new light. This idea also contributes to the diversity of female artistic production, deactivating the critical component that their works of art could have. With these exhibitions, feminine art is vindicated.
But what exactly is female art?
Is female art a group, a style, a movement? Namely, female art focuses on simplicity, detail, smoothness, daily and intimate themes, soft colours, and rounded shapes. However, women are very different, so “female art” presents a vast variety of emotions, different types of personalities and personal tastes. The result is collective exhibitions in which very different works are mixed. Exhibitions in which the priority is that the creative subject is a woman. This type of project deals with gender issues.
The “exhibitions of women” appeared in the seventies in the United States in a protest highlighting the uncommon presence of women in museums and in collective exhibitions. In Europe, “all-women exhibitions” emerged at the end of the eighties. Those events were mostly linked to the celebrations of March 8 and promoted by public institutions.
How to organise the all-women exhibition?
When it comes to the organisation aspect, all-female exhibitions don’t differ very much from regular exhibitions. However, it is worth to emphasise, that this type of display is very unique. Special decorations, signs, graphics designs, and ExpoCart stands can add an amazing and unforgettable atmosphere to the event. Also, it’s worth remembering that women-only exhibitions will attract mainly women so be sure that they will feel comfortable and pleasant during the whole event. To do it, you can, for example, prepare some healthy food and delicious drinks (tea or coffee would be perfect). You can also make various workshops and interesting video presentations for women.
Conclusion
It is clear that we must make visible the work of the artists, there is no doubt about that.
It’s necessary to normalise and integrate cultural and artistic production with innovative perspectives such as all-women exhibitions.
