Subvert, Repair, Reclaim: Contemporary Artists Take Back the Nude

Images of nude women have been central to Western art, shaping ideas about beauty and purity, and who is allowed to be seen. Now on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Subvert, Repair, Reclaim: Contemporary Artists Take Back the Nude brings together multimedia works by twelve contemporary artists who critically examine the objectification, exploitation, and erasure embedded within these images throughout history.
 
Featuring works made since 2012, the exhibition symbolically reaches into the frames—and framing—of the nude as it has appeared within encyclopedic museum contexts. Xandra Ibarra positions her critical Turn Around Sidepiece on a spinning marble pedestal, while Rachelle Anayansi Mozman Solano examines the diaries of Paul Gauguin through photography, video, and collage. Betty Tompkins overlays familiar art-historical images with the apologies and defenses from those accused of abuses during the #MeToo era. Through their work, these artists confront entrenched gender structures and power dynamics in work that resonates with present-day issues of accountability, bodily autonomy, and agency.
 
This exhibition presents an intergenerational group of artists working across performance, video, painting, sculpture, photography, sound, and collage. It features the work of Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, Nona Faustine, Derek Fordjour, Xandra Ibarra, Maya Jeffereis, Gisela Charfauros McDaniel, Joiri Minaya, Rachelle Anayansi Mozman Solano, Cato Ouyang, Katherine Sherwood, Betty Tompkins, and Salman Toor.
 
Subvert, Repair, Reclaim: Contemporary Artists Take Back the Nude is curated by Carmen Hermo, Lorraine and Alan Bressler Curator of Contemporary Art, and Yutong Shi, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Contemporary Art. On view through August 2, 2026. Learn more at mfa.org.