International Women's Day/History Month And Cyber Special

Celebrating and Centering Female Identifying Visual Voices

On International Women’s Day, I salute the women pioneers who have carried us forward.

The majority of female artistic visionaries have worked outside a cultural spotlight and remain uncounted in historical canons. Lorraine O’Grady is getting her due at age 86 with her first retrospective at the Brooklyn Art Museum. As noted in a stellar review of the exhibit by Siddhartha Mitter in the New York Times: ““Both/And” is more than a show title. It offers an alternative to the winners-and-losers thinking, she once wrote, “that is continuously birthing supremacies from the intimate to the political, of which white supremacy may be only the most inclusive. She wrote elsewhere that the “lack of resolution” needs to become the cultural goal.”

O’Grady reflects; “I feel that I’m working on the skin of culture and I’m making incisions.” Her work is letting in light and clearing a path for more women’s voices to be heard, encountered, reckoned with, acquired, exhibited and honored for their contribution to our collective human experience.

The article is accompanied by impactful portraits by Lelanie Foster. Foster is a Bronx-based photographer whose work is centered on especially honoring the strength and beauty of Black and brown women.

Gender parity in photography is part of my mission. This art form was made more accessible to women from its inception. Other fine arts such as painting and sculpture were excluded from women practicing for millennium. Statistically women represent the majority of art students while women artists are exhibited less than 10% in global arts institutions. Women of color constitute less than half of that 10%.

Resolution begins with illuminating, elevating and amplifying the visual voices of all women, everyday.