The Armory Show

Hollis Taggart’s booth will trace the legacy of women abstract artists from the post-war moment to the present. Our focused booth will feature select key artists of the New York School, including Grace Hartigan, Betty Parsons, Michael West, Joan Mitchell, and Dusti Bongé, who fought to earn respect in the male-dominated world of abstract expressionism––not as muses, but as artists. Michael (Corinne) West adopted a masculine first name in efforts to free her work from the bias of gender, while Dusti Bongé created art as a single mother at a time when servitude to family was expected to override any personal ambitions for women.

Driven by integrity of purpose, pure talent, and single-minded work ethic (Joan Mitchell: “When you are tired, depressed, or even sick… there is only one cure: get up and work”), these visionary female artists opened the door to the art world for artists to come, including contemporary artists Dana James, Hollis Heichemer, and Hayoon Jay Lee. With their lushly pigmented brushstrokes (Heichemer), use of unorthodox materials such as rice (Lee), and opaque color fields that flicker (James), these contemporary artists’ works nod to the groundbreaking legacy of the post-war artists mentioned above, while building out new modes of abstraction completely on their own terms. Our booth invites a long look at the practice of abstraction over the past century by women artists, highlighting how contemporary practices do not transpire in isolation but are always, intractably, in conversation with those who came before them––not just in terms of artistic style, but also through transformations of social codes these earlier artists helped enact.

For more information on the gallery's booth presentation please contact us at +1 212.628.4000 or info@hollistaggart.com.