Raw Material: The Art and Life of Susan Kleckner

Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery presents Raw Material: The Art and Life of Susan Kleckner, the first comprehensive retrospective of the pioneering feminist artist, filmmaker, photographer, and performance artist. Curated by William Kaizen and on view January 23 through April 5, 2026, the exhibition brings together nearly 100 works spanning photography, film, installation, collage, performance, and archival materials—many of which are being shown publicly for the first time. Extending beyond the gallery, Raw Material unfolds across Philadelphia through a citywide film and performance series—from Lightbox Film Center at the Bok Building to Public Trust—underscoring the public, durational, and site-responsive nature of Kleckner’s work.

Spanning more than four decades of creative experimentation and political engagement, Raw Material offers a long-overdue reappraisal of Kleckner’s multifaceted career and enduring influence on feminist, queer, and activist art practices in the United States and beyond. While Kleckner was a foundational figure within feminist art and film circles during her lifetime, institutional and structural barriers—including struggles with mental and physical illness—contributed to the marginalization of her legacy. This exhibition represents years of scholarly recovery and collaborative research, made possible through sustained archival work and the efforts of those who knew and championed Kleckner’s practice.

Raw Material takes its title from an unrealized photographic series and publication Kleckner developed late in life, documenting experiences of institutionalization and recovery. Across film, photography, performance, and writing, she approached art not as a refined product but as an active site of inquiry, care, and survival—one in which vulnerability, endurance, and political urgency remained visible. The title honors this approach, foregrounding Kleckner’s belief that the unfiltered, the provisional, and the embodied are not preparatory to art, but its essential substance.

Organized thematically, the exhibition foregrounds Kleckner’s belief in art as both a personal and political tool. Highlights include self-portraits from Kleckner’s final years, created during periods of intensive psychoanalysis and palliative care; photographs and mixed-media works representing queer life and sexuality; documentation of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, the 19-year, female-led anti-nuclear protest and anarchist community in England; and extensive materials related to Window Peace (1986), Kleckner’s year-long storefront performance at SoHoZat in New York, in which more than forty women artists sequentially occupied a 5-by-6.5-foot display window as a public act of endurance, visibility, and peace.

Raw Material is accompanied by a robust public program series across Philadelphia that centers film and performance as foundational to Kleckner’s practice. Curated by William Kaizen and Jesse Pires of Lightbox Film Center, the series includes a reimagining of Window Peace organized by Kiran Jandu at West Philadelphia’s Public Trust; screenings at Lightbox Film Center of Kleckner’s landmark feminist films, including Three Lives (1971) and Birth Film (1973); a live, improvised performance by Philadelphia folk-psych band Henbane to accompany Kleckner’s Desert Piece (Outtakes) (1980); and a screening at Haverford College of Another Look at the Miami Convention (1972), the first feature-length television documentary shot and edited by an all-women crew. Learn more here. 

A fully illustrated monographic catalog, scheduled for publication in Spring 2026, will further contextualize Kleckner’s life and work. Edited by Kaizen, the publication includes essays by Kaizen and art historian Siona Wilson, as well as a conversation between artists Linda Cummings and Susan Jahoda, offering both scholarly and deeply personal perspectives on Kleckner’s radical practice.

Major support for Raw Material: The Art and Life of Susan Kleckner is provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Additional support provided by Haverford College’s John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities; Lightbox Film Center; Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archive Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries; and Public Trust, Philadelphia. 

Events
Opening talk and reception: January 23, 4:30–7pm
Conversation with curator William Kaizen and psychoanalyst and Kleckner collaborator Ona Lindquist

Three Lives and Birth film screening: January 28, 7–9pm
Introduction and conversation with Patricia White, Swarthmore College
Lightbox Film Center, Bok Auditorium 800 Mifflin Street, Philadelphia, PA 19148

Another Look at the Miami Convention: February 18, 7–9pm
Introduction and conversation with Emmy Award-winning producer, writer, and director Carolyn Kresky
VCAM Screening Room 001, Haverford College

Desert Piece (Outtakes) and Pierre film screening: March 4, 7–9pm
Featuring live, improvised accompaniment by Philadelphia folk-psych band Henbane
Lightbox Film Center, Bok Auditorium 800 Mifflin Street, Philadelphia, PA 19148

Window Peace 2026 performance and community circle: March 18–20
Led by artist Kiran Jandu
Public Trust, 4017 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Media contact: Sara Griffin—sara@griffinprny.com