As I walked through the “Never Done: 100 Years of Women in Politics and Beyond” exhibit in the Tang gallery room, I was surrounded by empowering artwork. The use of different art mediums by diverse women and non-binary artists propelled the purpose of the exhibit to not only celebrate women’s achievements, but also to highlight the ways that BIPOC women are still being marginalized.
On a chilly fall day, I chatted with Rachel Seligman, Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs and Malloy Curator; Minita Sanghvi, Assistant Professor of Management, Marketing, and Business; and Jane Cole ‘20, Marchand Intern and student curator, about “Never Done.”
Sanghvi, whose research falls on gender and race, first pitched the idea of a “100 years of women in politics” exhibit to Seligman in 2015, during the time that Hillary Clinton was running for President. Sanghvi explained the process during the initial years as being the “ideation period,” where they created a list of artists that they wanted to include in the exhibit. One of the key aspects of this exhibit for Sanghvi was that she wanted it to be inclusive of all women and non binary artists with various identities, sexualities, and backgrounds.
“I wanted to make sure that marginalized voices were heard,” Sanghvi said. She did this by ensuring that intersectionality was at the forefront of the exhibit.
As for the title of the exhibit, Seligman came up with the initial idea when she stumbled across a rhyme from the 1900s in her research. The rhyme reads, “A man’s work is from sun to sun, but a woman’s work is never done.” Seligman found the “never done” part fitting for the exhibit. “‘Never done’ seemed to get at the idea that this show, which marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, is about more than the celebration of that achievement--which was in no way the actual enfranchisement of every American woman. It was in no way an end of the battle,” Seligman said. This rhyme, despite being from the 1900s, is still relevant today within this unequal climate.
Sanghvi added that the title was twofold in meaning. One meaning is that a “women’s work is never done” because men only work a certain amount of hours until they come home. The other being about how there are not enough women in high positions of power , “That idea of how far we are from the idea of equality and achieving equity in places where decisions are made appealed to me,” Sanghvi said. The title acts as an ode to women in the past and the present who work hard even in the midst of inequality. This exhibit took five years of planning to compile the 100 works by 100 artists.
Jane Cole is currently part of the Carole Marchand internship which is a pre-professional museum internship. She is an Art History major and Political Science minor, and she started assisting with the exhibit intermittently in October 2019, and more consistently during the summer of 2020. During that time she created a booklet called the gallery guide for the exhibit which is published on the Tang website. She contacted artists in the show for their reflections on two prompts.
“One [first prompt] was commenting how the artist’s work relates to issues of feminism, intersectionality, and gender equality and how it fits in with the show,” Cole said, “The second prompt was more specific, and it was asking about the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments and what is still to be achieved.”
In the end, Cole received quotes from a majority of the 100 artists about the purpose of their work and the shortcomings of the 19th Amendment. “Many of them were elegantly written, and a lot of them touched on, yes, the ratification as a huge milestone, but also in that celebration we need to be hyper critical and hyper aware of how the 19th amendment only advocated and gave the vote for white women.”
Cole wanted to make sure that the exhibit focused on how many non-binary BIPOC and BIPOC women were and are still being represented and having their voices heard.“It was great to see that a lot of the artists were addressing that in their statements because I was a little bit worried about the show being too celebratory when people have problems with praising the 19th Amendment,” Cole said.
For the artists who did not respond or who are no longer alive, Cole researched quotes from existing interviews and read more about the artists. A quote that stood out to Cole was by artist Wendy Red Star who spoke on the tension about being an Indigenous artist.
“She feels this tension about showing her work because museum curators tend to expect that all of her work to explicitly comment on her experience as an Indigenous woman,” Cole said, “But if her work is too ethnic looking, then it’s not what museums and galleries want.” She explained that a lot of BIPOC women artists experience this double standard of trying to cater to what others want, while staying true to their identities.
In July, Cole also worked on a feminist reading list comprised of fiction and nonfiction books to accompany the exhibition. “I put down books that I thought spoke to me. A few were by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Roxane Gay, and bell hooks.”
I concluded by asking about her favorite pieces. She mentioned The Four Virtues by Saya Woolfalk. “She [Woolfalk] makes visually interesting work. There are all prints and she uses imagery from sci-fi to comment on and imagine a future world or universe in which things are better,” Cole said. Another one was Resurrection Story Without Patrons by Kara Walker. “I love Kara Walker in general, she makes these cool, delicate silhouettes on paper. The work we have in the show is an etching using the same black and white silhouette style,” Cole said.
The last piece she mentioned was The Temple of Time by Firelei Báez because of the colors and the history behind it. Cole explained the research that she did behind this artwork. This piece was a reproduction of Emma Willer’s work which represented time and history. However, Báez recreated it, “She incorporates the temple of time in the background, but she paints over it. The artist tears it [temple] apart with these huge bands of color,” Cole said. This piece of art combines history and art and may be commenting on the past.
The Temple of Time by Firelei Báez
From my conversations with Seligman, Sanghvi, and Cole, this exhibit combines art and politics and raises issues of how BIPOC women and non-binary artists do not experience equality. They do not get the space that they deserve, and this exhibit brings to light the way discrimination is present in the art world. There are expectations placed on marginalized BIPOC women and non-binary artists to create a certain type of art. We must destroy these limiting expectations and let artists create what they want and how they want to. The fight for women’s equality is never done. Until all women and non-binary people get the right to be heard and accepted without judgement, this fight is far from being over.
The reading list and the gallery guide can be found on the Tang website. The exhibit is running until June 2021. Currently, only about half of the pieces are up, but the rest will be displayed next semester to avoid over cluttering. The Tang Museum hours are Thursdays from 4:30-7:30pm and Saturdays from noon-5pm.