(re)FOCUS THEN & NOW
The Galleries at Moore:
January 27 2024 -March 16, 2024
(re)FOCUS THEN:
81 Artists Revisited, 50 Years Later
In 1974, Diane Burko and a committee of young women artists, art historians, curators, and educators organized a citywide event featuring women artists. The centerpiece was one of the first large-scale surveys ever of women artists, curated by a distinguished group of women pioneer curators: Marcia Tucker, who had just founded the New Museum, New York; Cindy Nemser, art critic and founder, the Feminist Art Journal; Adelyn Breeskin, director, the Baltimore Museum; Lila Katzen, sculptor; and Anne d’Harnoncourt, director, Philadelphia Museum of Art. The exhibition, held at the Civic Center Museum, revealed the creativity and originality of women artists.”
Burko and Brodsky researched the original FOCUS core show and tracked down all 81 artists in the original exhibition. The 2024 exhibition will include a small work by most of the 81 artists along with a photo of the artist and a short narrative biography with access to more information about the artists via Q-R codes.
(re)FOCUS NOW:
Re-examining the Feminist Art Movement
Also on view at the Galleries at Moore: A contemporary exhibition, accompanying the historical one, highlights the ongoing work of artists who identify as women, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming in Philadelphia’s community of emerging cultural producers. Organized by gallery director Gabrielle Lavin Suzenski along with Denise M. Brown, executive director of the Leeway Foundation, (Re)FOCUS: Now provides a platform for underrepresented voices and presents projects that reexamine FOCUS’s historical context through a new lens. Participating artists include Atisha Fordyce, Wit López, Li Sumpter, Eva Wu, and a selection of work curated by Isa Isioma Matisse of The Future is Us Collective including Annais Delgado '22, De’von Downes, Laila Islam '22, Traci Johnson, Isa Isioma Matisse, D’shon Mccarthy, Amber Mooers, Forrest Rose, Gina Taylor, Zella Vanié, Alyssa Weinfurtner, Mitch Wiesen, Meg Wolensky, and Candice Wright.
(re)FOCUS: THEN includes work by:
Pat Adams · Edna Andrade · Eleanor Antin · Ann Arnold · Frances Barth · Judith Bernstein · Cynthia Bickley · Isabel Bishop · Nell Blaine · Blythe Bohnen · Louise Bourgeois · Miriam Brumer · Diane Burko · Rhys Caparn · Cynthia Carlson · Barbara Chase-Riboud · Ellen Cibula · Elaine DeKooning · Agnes Denes · Sally Drummond · Mary Beth Edelson · Martha Mayer Erlebacher · Claire Falkenstein · Josefa Filkosky · Perle Fine · Janet Fish · Audrey Flack · Mary Frank · Jane Freilicher · Sue Fuller · Ilse Getz · Mary Grigoriadis · Nancy Grossman · Susan Hall · Linda Howard · Mary Eleanore Hubbard · Margaret Israel · Yvonne Jacquette · Lila Katzen · Jane Kaufman · Luanne Keller · Joyce Kozloff · Lee Krasner · Kay Kurt · Yayoi Kusama · Pat Lasch · Marcia Marcus · Carolyn Mazzello · Ann McCoy · Brenda Miller · Joan Mitchell · Ree Morton · Irene Moss · Catherine Murphy · Alice Neel · Edith Neff · Louise Nevelson · Mary Obering · Elizabeth Osborne · Beverly Pepper · Lil Picard · Howardena Pindell · Adrian Piper · Katherine Porter · Deborah Remington · Faith Ringgold · Miriam Schapiro · Arlene Slavin · Sylvia Sleigh · Jenny Snider · Joan Snyder · Nora Speyer · Pat Steir · Hedda Sterne · Marjorie Strider · Alma Thomas · Phyllis Thompson · Joan Thorne · Louise Todd · Charmion Von Wiegand · Jane Wilson · Barbara Zucker
IMAGES LEFT TO RIGHT: Diane Burko, Amazon 7, Diptych A, 2023, mixed media on canvas, 20 x 20 inches.; Louise Bourgeois, The Angry Cat, 1999, State VII of VII, drypoint and engraving, plate 10 x 12 inches.; Elizabeth Osborne, Catalina Foothills II (B), 2005, oil on panel, 19.5 x 19.5 inches; Phyllis Thompson, What We Did. One Day, 2017, mixed media with monotype print, collage, and drawing; Joan Thorne, Madrogada, 1997, oil on canvas, 36 x 45 inches