Mequitta Ahuja (b. 1976). "A Real Allegory of Her Studio", 2015. Oil on canvas, 80 x 96 in. PAFA, 2017.47. Courtesy of PAFA.

(MONTCLAIR, NJ) -- The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) has announced four new, visually inspiring exhibitions opening this September and November: Taking Space: Contemporary Women Artists and the Politics of Scale; Siona Benjamin: Lilith in the New World; Inspired by the Weight of an Object–A Partnership with Studio Montclair; and Joel Meyerowitz: Photographs from Cape Cod (1976-1987).

Taking Space: Contemporary Women Artists and the Politics of Scale; Opening Friday, September 15. Inspired by a show at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in 2021, the new exhibition Taking Space: Contemporary Women Artists and the Politics of Scale will display ten stunning artworks from PAFA alongside foundational works from the Montclair Art Museum’s collection of American women artists.

Dyani White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota, b. 1976). "She Gives (Quiet Strength VII)", 2020. Acrylic on canvas. 84 x 120 in. PAFA 2020.17. Courtesy of PAFA.

This groundbreaking exhibition invites viewers to consider how space, size, scale, and repetition can be interpreted as political gestures in the practices of many women artists. Together, this comprehensive group of artworks reveal the varied approaches of women artists for whom space is a critical feature of their work, whether they occupy significant space on walls or engage three-dimensionally with gallery spaces through sculpture and installation. Also addressed is the visual power of seriality and repetition as spatial visual practices, as well as the diverse methods of asserting and reclaiming the spaces of women’s bodies. On view in Taking Space for the first time at MAM since 2018 is Kara Walker’s cut-paper silhouette installation Virginia’s Lynch Mob (1998).

The diverse array of artists represented in Taking Space includes: Mequitta Ahuja (b. 1976, Grand Rapids, MI), Edna Andrade (1917–2008, b. Portsmouth, VA), Jennifer Bartlett (1941–2022, b. Long Beach, CA), Nanette Carter (b. 1954, Columbus, OH), Lalla Essaydi (b. 1956, Marrakesh, Morocco), Eiko Fan (b. 1951, Tokyo, Japan), Hope Gangloff (b. 1974, Amityville, NY), Clarity Haynes (b. 1971, McAllen, TX), Barbara Kruger (b. 1945, Newark, NJ), Suzanne McClelland (b. 1959, Jacksonville, FL), Elizabeth Murray (1940–2007, b. Chicago, IL), Alice Neel (1900–1984, b. Gladwyne, PA), Betty Parsons (1900–1982, b. New York, NY), Jaune Quick-to- See Smith (Cree/Salish/Shoshone, b. 1940, Saint Ignatius, MT), Ana Vizcarra Rankin (b. 1977, Maldonado, Uruguay), Alyson Shotz (b. 1964, Glendale, AZ), Sandy Skoglund (b. 1946, Weymouth, MA), Mickalene Thomas (b. 1971, Camden, NJ), Kara Walker (b. 1969, Stockton, CA), Kay Walkingstick (Cherokee, b. 1935, Syracuse, NY), Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953, Portland, OR), Dyani White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota, b. 1976, Madison, WI), and Emmi Whitehorse (Diné [Navajo Nation], b. 1957, Crownpoint, NM).

The exhibition will run through January 7, 2024.

Siona Benjamin (b. 1960). "Lilith in the New World", 2023, 13 x 30 ft. banner in progress. Image courtesy of the artist.

Siona Benjamin: Lilith in the New World; Opening Friday, September 15. New Jersey-based artist Siona Benjamin (b. 1960, Mumbai, India) will unveil the stunning, graphic-arts inspired banner Lilith in the New World (2023) this fall in the Laurie Art Stairway. This monumental piece measuring 13 feet high by 30 feet wide explores the joys, passions, and anguish of both time-honored and unfairly reviled women of the Hebrew canon. A recurring figure in the artist’s oeuvre, Lilith was the mythological first wife of Adam, who stands as an icon of independence and courage. The artist has reclaimed this iconic figure by combining styles derived from comic books, Pop art, Bollywood, street graphics, Indian folk images, Persian miniatures, and Hebrew manuscripts. Lilith’s blue skin is “a symbol of being other…a woman of color,” like the artist herself.

Since immigrating to the United States in 1986, Benjamin has been pondering the meaning of belonging in her adopted homeland from the multiple perspectives of being South Asian, an immigrant, an American, a woman, and a Jew. She received an MFA in painting and another in Theater set design while in the United States after completing undergraduate art degrees in Mumbai. In 2011, Benjamin was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to India and in 2017 was awarded a second Fulbright Fellowship to Israel.

Her work has been featured in: The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Forward, The Jewish Week, The Boston Globe, Art New England, ArtNews, The Times of India, The Jerusalem Post, and many others. 

This exhibition will run through August 4, 2024.

Pamela Moore. "Swimming Through Caves", courtesy of the artist.

Inspired by the Weight of an Object–A Partnership with Studio Montclair; Opening Friday, September 15. For the third year in a row, the Montclair Art Museum is working in collaboration with Studio Montclair to present a juried show inspired by the Museum’s fall exhibition. Juried by Virginia Block and Ira Wagner, the MAM’s Executive Director, the exhibition will run concurrently at the Montclair Art Museum and Studio Montclair’s Leach Gallery at 641 Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair. Weight of an Object builds on the approaches and themes of the women artists being exhibited in Taking Space. While not limited to women artists, the works on view utilize the scale of both the works themselves as well as their subject matter, multiple media, depictions of the body, and abstraction to consider the many ways that space itself can be interpreted and incorporated in artistic expression. 

The exhibition will be on view through October 28, 2023.

Joel Meyerowitz (b. 1938). "Cape Cod, Massachusetts", 1979. Vintage RC print from negative, 8 x 10 in. Photo: Ira Wagner.

Joel Meyerowitz: Photographs from Cape Cod (1976-1987); Opening Friday, November 10. This November, the Museum will welcome the first solo exhibition in the New York City-area in six years featuring the renowned photographer Joel Meyerowitz (b. 1938). Drawn from a trove of 201 Meyerowitz photographs anonymously donated to the Montclair Art Museum in 2021, this exhibition will feature 22 photographs taken by Meyerowitz of Cape Cod from 1976 to 1987.

During the summers of 1976 and 1977, Meyerowitz began to work with the light, landscape, architecture and people of the Cape, especially in the Truro-Provincetown area. These contemplative observations of space, mood, light, and color pervade the variety of subjects in the photographs on view. His beautiful, serene photographs convey the finest nuances of color and light on the Cape’s unique juncture of sky, sea, and land.

Meyerowitz is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in more than 350 exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world. Celebrated as a pioneer, Meyerowitz was one of the first photographers to successfully transition from black-and-white to color in fine-art photography. After studying painting and medical drawing at Ohio State University, where he received a BFA in 1959, Meyerowitz taught himself photography in 1962. By 1976, he had turned primarily to color photographs of architectural light and space made with a large-format view camera.

This exhibition will be on view through the spring of 2024.

The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) is located at 3 South Mountain Avenue in Montclair, New Jersey.  It boasts a renowned collection of American and Native American art that uniquely highlights art-making in the United States over the last 300 years. Works in MAM's Native American art collection span the period of ca. 1200 C.E. to the present day. The Vance Wall Art Education Center encompasses the Museum’s educational efforts, including award-winning Yard School of Art studio classes, lectures and talks, family events, tours, and the mobile MAM Art Truck. MAM exhibitions and programs serve a wide public of all ages, from families and seniors to artists, educators, and scholars.

All MAM programs are made possible, in part, by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, The Vance Wall Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and Museum members.