MCA DNA: Riot Grrrls

Riot Grrrls is a celebration of female artists who are making bold and adventurous abstract paintings. Sexism continues to pervade the art world; male artists still garner higher prices for their work and are disproportionately represented in exhibitions. In a challenge to the boys’ club sensibility that has historically shaped abstract painting, the female painters featured in the exhibition, which is named after the feminist hardcore punk movement that began in the 1990s,  achieve a level of mastery, innovation, and chutzpah that doesn’t need external validation.

The exhibition presents ten pioneering painters, including Mary Heilmann and subsequent leaders Charline von Heyl, Judy Ledgerwood, and Joyce Pensato, along with a younger group of rebels including Molly Zuckerman-Hartung and Amy Feldman. As with the feminist hardcore punk movement that gives the exhibition its title, these painters have influenced each other and the next generation of emerging artists.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website