SHE: Picturing women at the turn of the 21st century

David Winton Bell Gallery
Brown University
64 College St.
Providence, RI 02912
October 25–December 21, 2014

Cohen Gallery
Brown University
154 Angell St.,
Providence, RI 02912
October 25–Decemeber 2, 2014

T +1 401 863 2932

www.brown.edu/bellgallery

The exhibition 
Spanning a period of 24 years—from 1989 to 2013—SHE presents a broad-ranging selection of contemporary images of women. The exhibition, which is drawn from a private collection, includes works by 11 of the most highly acclaimed artists working today: Candice Breitz, Glenn Brown, George Condo, John Currin, Jeff Koons, Yayoi Kusama, Chris Ofili, Jenny Saville, Cindy Sherman, Rebecca Warren and Lisa Yuskavage.

Within these paintings, sculptures, and videos are both convergences and divergences in style, concept, and intent. Jenny Saville’s massive paintings of corpulent women challenge conventional ideals of female beauty, while Cindy Sherman’s History Paintings expand her critique of representations of femininity into the art-historical past as she reworks portraits by Rembrandt, David, and Fragonard. Candice Breitz critiques Hollywood’s portrayal of motherhood in her video installation Mother. John Currin and Lisa Yuskavage unapologetically embrace and exaggerate images made by and for men, from advertising to pornography. While Currin admits to a chauvinistic fascination, Yuskavage attempts to take possession of this previously male venue. Similarly, Rebecca Warren’s sculpture L channels the comic imagery of R. Crumb’s outrageously sexualized women. The exhibition’s discourse on gender is compounded by issues of race in the works of Chris Ofili and Yayoi Kusama. And for artists George Condo, Glenn Brown, and Jeff Koons the depiction of “women as subject” falls secondary to formal concerns. Applying their idiosyncratic and highly identifiable styles to images of women, Condo and Brown parse the satirical, the humorous, and the grotesque. And for Koons women are part and parcel of his Pop renditions—no more, no less.

The galleries are open from 11am to 4pm Monday through Wednesday and Friday; from 1pm to 9pm on Thursday, and from 1pm to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Artist lectures

Candice Breitz
November 5
5:30pm
List Art Building Auditorium

Glenn Brown
November 19
5:30pm
List Art Building Auditorium