Beyond Boundaries: Feminine Forms is a dual-sited exhibition of artworks from the Linda Lee Alter Collection of Art by Women at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and The William and Uytendale Scott Memorial Study Collection of Works by Women Artists of the Special Collections at Bryn Mawr College.
The collaboration, conceived by graduate students in the History of Art, Mechella Yezernitskaya and Laurel McLaughlin, in consultation with Carrie Robbins, Curator of Art & Artifacts, Bryn Mawr College, Jodi Throckmorton, Curator of Contemporary Art, PAFA, and Judith Thomas, Director of Exhibitions, PAFA, brings together two institutions, collections, and curatorial teams for an exhibition that highlights and reexamines each institution's inclusive efforts to collect artworks by women.
While considering the historical stakes of such strategic essentialism, the exhibition queries its rationale and continued relevance by recuperating its "feminine" gender criteria as instead an artistic strategy that refuses the gendered stereotypes to which art by women has been subjected. To do so, the curators propose seven thematic constellations for subverting and reclaiming the "feminine" beyond biological, aesthetic, and social boundaries.
The sister-sited exhibition features over 80 works on paper, paintings, and sculptures by 72 artists, including Kara Walker, Lesley Dill, Betye Saar, Edna Andrade, Eleanor Heller, Nancy Spero, Joan Mitchell, and Kay Walkingstick. The two sites will be joined by programming and an exhibition catalogue available at Bryn Mawr College.