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Progress is a suspect word when applied to art.
But not always. In 1995, the painter Elizabeth Murray organized a group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. It was one of the museum’s series of “Artist’s Choice” shows, with contents drawn from the permanent collection. Ms. Murray was the first woman to participate in the series. She chose 100 or so pieces by some 70 artists and sardined them into tight quarters off the lobby. The artists she picked had one thing in common: they were all women. The show, “Modern Women,” was a MoMA first.
Now, 15 years later and nearly three years after Ms. Murray’s death, the museum’s gender demographics have changed significantly. This spring there are two permanent collection shows devoted almost entirely to female artists: “Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography” and the smaller “Mind and Matter: Alternative Abstractions, 1940s to Now.” They coincide with the publication of a big, deep, feisty book of essays, several years in the making, called “Modern Women: Women Artists at the Museum of Modern Art.”
In addition, the much-noticed Marina Abramovic retrospective is still on view (through Monday), as is a terrific installation piece, “Mirage,” by Joan Jonas. A trim Lee Bontecou minisurvey runs through the summer, as does a Maya Deren film program.
Add a handful of single works by women strategically installed through the premises — a Louise Bourgeois sculpture introduces the grand sweep of European Modernism on the fourth floor; one of Lee Lozano’s hammerhead paintings commands the fourth-floor public space — and the curatorial rethinking sparked by Ms. Murray’s show becomes clear.
MoMA’s photography collection has always been strong in female artists, sufficiently strong for “Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography” to almost live up to the sweeping promise of its title.
The show — 200 works by 120 artists — starts with a botanical print by the British photographer Anna Atkins from around 1850, when photography barely had a history, it was still so new. Because the curators — Roxana Marcoci, Sarah Meister and Eva Respini, all from the department of photography — have ordered the exhibition by date, we get a solid dose of late Victoriana in the opening room, with pictures by Julia Margaret Cameron and Gertrude Kasebier.
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