FAITH WILDING

Wilding’s practice emerged at the forefront of Feminist Art in Los Angeles during the late 1960s and 1970s. For the last 50 years, Wilding has lived as an activist and artist, with a fierce commitment to eco feminism. Wilding was a co-initiator of the Feminist Art Programs alongside Miriam Shapiro and Judy Chicago. The Feminist Art Program produced Womanhouse, an art installation and performance space focusing on collaborative and feminist ideas. Fueled by the explosion of female-focused work and research, Womanhouse sought to move beyond the predominantly male-centric art history. Wilding’s work continues to interrogate societal narratives, challenging the status quo in art-making, life, and politics.

Faith Wilding (b. 1943, Paraguay) has exhibited extensively worldwide since the late 1960s. A 2014 retrospective of Wilding’s work, Fearful Symmetries, travelled to five venues across the United States. Wilding’s work was also included in the seminal survey_WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution_, organized by Cornelia Butler, which traveled from the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles) to the National Museum of Women (Washington DC), PS1 Contemporary Art Center (Long Island), and the Vancouver Art Gallery. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Womanhouse, an influential Los Angeles exhibition, installation, and performance space organized through the CalArts Feminist Art Program. At Womanhouse, Wilding’s Womb Room fiber installation and performance, Waiting, are some of the best known and highly influential works of the 1970s Feminist Art Movement. Wilding’s book “By Our Own Hands,” catalogues this important era experimentation and collaboration that defined west coast Feminist art during the early 1970s.

Courtesy Anat Ebgi