Museum of Modern Art

Anthologies are tricky projects to undertake. They are by their nature exclusive, as their purpose is either to further a canon's creation without challenging it, or to shatter boundaries and call for re-definitions and new critical perspectives. Either way, the vast majority of contributors to the anthologized media will be left out. Modern Women: Women Artists at the Museum of Modern Art is self-consciously trying to create both kinds of compilations at the same time. The book being about modern art specifically further complicates the viewing of these artists and their work—the editors are attempting to define and redefine a genre created to define and redefine. So it goes without saying that Modern Women is a pretty metaphysical literary and artistic experience. 

A quarter of a century ago, New York's Museum of Modern Art opened An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture, a supposed international and comprehensive exhibition of the most significant contemporary artists. Every artist was a white American or European and of 169 artists featured, only 13 were women. Shortly thereafter, a group of kick ass feminists founded the Guerrilla Girls. Wearing gorilla masks to maintain anonymity, the Guerrilla Girls have been using various clever forms of activism to educate the masses about the gender and race gaps in the art world since before I was born. And it appears that the Museum of Modern Art may be beginning to pay attention...