Gender

While gender is often the first detail we learn about an artist who identifies as a woman, it is seldom the sole interpretive framework that should be applied to her practice. Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl’s collection, initiated in 2000, addressed a longstanding gender imbalance in the art world by focusing on women artists. The collection can also be situated within today’s larger cultural conversation about the meaning and importance of gender. In the Now suggests that the category “woman” need not be cisgendered: it can be considered on a spectrum of personal, subjective identification. Many of the artists featured here do not regard gender as the defining aspect of their work, instead positing that “artist” is a gender-neutral term; others directly address gender through their imagery, exploring the idealization of the female form, issues of beauty and the gaze, the role of women in society, the politicization of that role, and women as agents of change.