THE DECONSTRUCTIVE IMPULSE: WOMEN ARTISTS RECONFIGURE THE SIGNS OF POWER, 1973-1992

This is the first survey exhibition to examine the critical ways in which linked feminist and deconstructive impulses drove the influential photo-based conceptual work commonly known as appropriation.

This exhibition focuses on the work of a diverse group of North American women artists who employ the visual languages of the mass media to unveil its codes and reveal embedded gender, sexual, racial, ethnic, and class-based inequities.

That variety is reflected in the range of artists represented in this show including Dara Birnbaum, Sarah Charlesworth, The Guerrilla Girls, Susan Hiller, Jenny Holzer, Mary Kelly, Silvia Kolbowski, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Martha Rosler, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Lorna Simpson, and Carrie Mae Weems, and others under consideration.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated book with contributions by co-curators Neuberger Museum Chief Curator Helaine Posner and art critic Nancy Princenthal, and art historians Tom McDonough, Griselda Pollock, and Kristine Stiles.

The Deconstructive Impulse is supported, in part, by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.