HER CROWD: NEW ART BY WOMEN FROM OUR NEIGHBORS’ PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

Hilary Harkness, Blue Nude, 2012–14, oil on linen panel, 7½ x
10¾”. Collection of Rick and Monica Segal. © Hilary Harkness.
Courtesy: Mary Boone Gallery, New York.

Zeitgeist, it seems, has descended on the art world this season. Museums and galleries are offering a bonanza of female artist exhibitions, challenging our conventional art historical narratives. A stand out in the mix is Her Crowd: New Art by Women from Our Neighbors’ Private Collections, an exhibition of contemporary women artists culled from nearby Fairfield and Westchester County private collections including the Tananbaum, Kaufman and Brant collections. 

Every three or four years the Bruce showcases works from important local collections, of which there are numerous in the Greenwich area. As they prepared for this year’s exhibit, curator Kenneth Silver and resident fellow Mia Laufer began to notice a trend not seen before in contemporary collecting: the significant presence of women artists. This notion would have been unheard of a couple of decades ago. Silver selected works for the show instinctually, reflecting his own personal taste and decided to present an array of established and emerging talent. What is striking is the number of celebrated artists such as Kiki Smith, Jenny Saville, Yayoi Kusama, Tara Donovan, Marilyn Minter and others, exhibited in the presence of equally compelling works by less familiar names.

These prestigious art collectors are not purely relying on the blue-chip gallery roster to make their acquiring decisions. They are making unorthodox choices, allowing for new comers to enter the scene. As these lesser-known women artists such as Malia Jensen and Alessandra Expósito become more mainstream, their work can begin to shift the disparity of the male-tofemaleartist ratio that has governed the art world for centuries. Laufer’s catalogue essay brilliantly expands on this concept, a point initially raised almost half a century ago by Linda Nochlin’s famous article Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?

A host of complex themes (feminism, motherhood, sexuality, food and beauty) are covered in this ambitious show, compellingly presented in diverse mediums and approaches: figurative and abstract paintings, minimalist, video, two and three dimensional forms and found objects. The exhibition is cleverly installed so that motifs and connections assert themselves insightfully. Oversized works juxtaposed with smaller, intimately scaled pieces make for an engaging viewing.