"WE DISSENT... Design of the Women's Movement in New York," on view at the Cooper Union from October 2, looks at more than 150 years of feminist artifacts and printed matter from a variety of feminist and radical artists and collectives such as the Heterodoxy Club, Redstockings, the Guerrilla Girls, and more. The exhibition features more than 200 artifacts by women artists rarely seen and shown in order to reconsider the contributions of women to social unity and justice.
By presenting some of the earliest forms of professional printmaking and connecting them to current means used by artists to express themselves, the exhibition expands our knowledge of the history of women and of the relationship between feminism and political action.
Displayed works vary from early prints on view for the first time since their 1860s realizations by students in the New York School of Design for Women at Cooper Institute (the art school for women founded in 1852 and integrated into The Cooper Union, then called the Cooper Institute, in 1859), to pieces by feminist and radical artists and collectives such as the Heterodoxy Club in the 1910s-30s and, post-1950s, Redstockings, the Heresies Collective, the Guerrilla Girls, WAC (Woman Action Coalition), DAM! (Dyke Action Machine!), and beyond.
The exhibition also includes works by women involved in the Black Panther Party, as well as the Young Lords Party, a largely Puerto Rican grassroots movement that fought against racial discrimination and inequality.
Image: No Means NO (red), from Women's Action Coalition (WAC) Blue Dot series, 1992, designed by Bethany Johns
more: cooper.edu (106)