For about a decade, the Shah Garg Foundation has showcased work by women artists. It’s a mission that shouldn’t be necessary in the 21st century, yet the art world often celebrates small strides rather than produces real equality. Still, the pieces comprising the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive’s “Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection” are hard to forget.
On view through April 20, the exhibition offers contemporary pieces by nearly 70 artists whose work is collected by Bay Area philanthropist-activist Komal Shah (who left the tech world to focus on and promote art specifically created by women) and her husband Gaurav Garg.
Divided into six sections—“Gestural Abstraction, “Luminous Abstraction,” “Painting and Technology,” “Craft is Art,” “Of Selves and Spirits” and “Disobedient Bodies”—the large grouping of abstract works shows a clear influence from genre superstars Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollock and makes a good case for being equal to those giants. Female contemporaries of Newman and Pollock likely were dismissed due to patriarchal hypocrisy.
From that perspective, Aria Dean’s 2021 sculpture “Little Island/Gut Punch” comes off as an almost literal statement of fighting back. The foam obelisk, the same green used in special effects studios, is indented, looking like it got hit by The Incredible Hulk. In an accompanying description, Dean calls it “a joke” about her own work: “You can take this as beating up monumentality, beating up Minimalism, beating up the phallus or phallus gesture. None of these and all of these are right.”
The influence of technology pops up a lot, even before the “Painting and Technology” section. Near Dean’s sculpture is Melissa Cody’s 2021 wool tapestry “The Three Rivers,” with colors and patterns that clearly reflect her Navajo Nation heritage. Surprisingly, though (even if only Gen Xers may notice), is Cody’s acknowledgement that the 8-bit videogames she grew up playing inspired the shapes in the piece. The pattern seems like a knit screenshot from “Yars’ Revenge.”
Even so, no tech-based piece stands out more than the hypnotic 2021 mixed-media “Crisscross” by Sarah Sze in the “Painting and Technology” section. The image of a glitched computer screen (made with acrylic, oil, polymers and more) is somehow comforting in its chaos.
There’s no shortage of political commentary in “Making Their Mark.” Given the misogyny and racism that characterized the 2024 presidential election, exhibition viewers ought to be forgiven for thinking that many works explicitly relate to it. Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s 2021 collage “In the Future Map” resembles the U.S. map turned on its side, with text commenting on the future of race-mixing and a none-too-subtle jab at Elon Musk.
Simone Leigh’s 2019 bronze sculpture “Stick” offers more subtle commentary. The top half is the torso of a Black woman, without eyes, or arms, Venus de Milo-style. The lower half is a dome with metal objects jutting out, resembling an undersea mine. It gives the impression (which the wall text description hints at) of a Black woman’s power, but not her humanity, being recognized. It’s a timely piece, to be sure.
Even with pieces that demand attention through an excess of noise, the exhibition has an equally captivating number of simple works, such as Rosemarie Trockel’s 2021 wool-on-canvas and wood “Chamade” and “Study for Chamade,” monochromatic lilac squares that resonate by their mere existence. They blend well with works in the “Disobedient Bodies” section, where graphic paintings and sculptures seem to dissect the female body, desexualizing it and forcing viewers to deal with its fragility.
BAMPFA’s “Making Their Mark,” which follows the exhibit’s opening in New York in 2023, is organized by Cecilia Alemani, chief curator of High Line Art in New York City, and BAMPFA Chief Curator Margot Norton. This West Coast-only presentation of the exhibition (it moves to the Kemper Art Museum in St. Louis in September) includes works that are on view for the first time, and by artists with Bay Area ties selected by Norton, who emphasizes dialogue between unconventional, alternative younger artists the groundbreaking artists who preceded them.
“Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection” runs through April 20 at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2155 Center St., Berkeley. Admission is $12-$14, free for ages 18 and under and on the first Thursday of each month. Call (510) 642-0808 or visit bampfa.org.
Charles Lewis III is a San Francisco-born journalist and performing artist. He has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED and the San Francisco Examiner. Dodgy evidence of this can be found at The Thinking Man’s Idiot.wordpress.com.
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