"Women Forward' at Williamsburg Art Center

The Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, on Brooklyn's Broadway, is located in a converted 19th-Century savings bank. With three floors hosting lectures, performances and exhibitions, this brainchild of the noted Japanese-American artist Yuko Nii has become a pivotal point in Williamsburg's revival as a cultural center.

Ms. Nii has assembled a multimedia celebration of Women's History Month that actually extends through May. The centerpiece is a two-part exhibition of women's art, the first part including work by women born before 1950, and the second, which opens April 21, featuring women born after mid-century.

Exhibitions of women's art are no longer particularly novel, which is not to say the idea isn't a valid one. Women remain underrepresented in galleries and especially museums; the art world remains largely a male preserve. Anne d'Harnoncourt rose to the top in Philadelphia and promoted many obscure artists but, pace Frida Kahlo, did relatively little to promote women's art.

But what is women's art?

A pertinent question arises here: Should women's art be promoted as such, rather than as the work of individual artists? And that raises a further question: Is there, really, any such thing as women's art, as opposed to the work of particular artists?

There is, to be sure, women's propaganda, serving one feminist agenda or another; a particularly unfortunate example was the exhibit a few years back at the Brooklyn Museum. In any case, self-ghettoization has never struck me as a good way to advance any cause.

Ms. Nii curated the present show herself. I'm happy to report that the artists she chose— some well known, like Judy Chicago and Janet Fish, others less so, and some entirely new to me— represent a high standard. Individually, their work was all eminently worth visiting, from Liz Biddle's ceramics and reliefs to Donna Moran's silk-screens to Hildy Burns's books and cutouts.

A matter of thought, not gender

Some of the artists use consciously female motifs; some don't. One of the most impressive, the Palestinian Samia Halaby, eschews the idea of producing feminist art entirely: In the studio, she writes, "I am thought, not gender."

Is this, then, a show of women's art, rather than of art by some quite good painters, sculptors, and collagists who happen to be women? After viewing the exhibit on two different days, my answer is, both. If I'd encountered the same artists in a different setting and with their names removed, I'd have said of some of the work that it appeared to be by women, and of some that it was difficult to say.

Up from samplers and quilts

But the overall impression of Ms. Nii's ensemble was unmistakably feminine, and in the best sense— a certain sensibility, a certain sense of form and color, a certain way of taking the world that, until less than a century ago, was largely confined to samplers and quilts. And that sensibility is simply enriching— for me, a mode of perception that makes the world a more capacious and vibrant place.

What's painful to reflect is not only that the struggle for recognition remains uphill for many women, but also that their vision is virtually absent from the first 70 centuries of civilized fine art. Looking at a show like Women Forward, one is grateful for what's there, but deeply struck by what's missing in the record, and forever silent.



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