Catherine Morris

The Sackler Center for Feminist Art’s “A Year of Yes,” 10-year anniversary celebration becomes an intervention.

- Hovey Brock

In October 2016, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art kicked off “A Year of Yes: Reimagining Feminism at the Brooklyn Museum” with a show dedicated to a retrospective of Land Artist Beverly Buchanan’s work, “Beverly Buchanan—Ruins and Rituals.” The Sackler Center inaugurated “A Year of Yes” to celebrate a decade of fulfilling its mission to introduce Feminist Art, theory, and activism to a general audience beyond the art world. When it opened in March 2007, it was the first public space in an encyclopedic museum dedicated to a feminist program. At the center of the space, almost as controversial now as it was when first shown at the Brooklyn Museum in 1979, Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, which had languished in storage, went on permanent display, forming an axis around which rotating shows have come and gone. These have featured artists as varied as Eva Hesse and Wangechi Mutu, as well as group shows about global Feminism and women Pop artists. Over the last 10 years, the Sackler Center has also built a growing database of women artists cataloging their careers and artworks, to ensure their reputations for posterity.

In presenting its theme last fall, the Sackler Center had this to say about A Year of Yes: “A Year of Yes presents a multiplicity of voices from the history of Feminism and Feminist Art while also showcasing contemporary artistic practices and new thought leadership. The project recognizes Feminism as a driving force for progressive change and takes the transformative contributions of Feminist Art during the last half-century as its starting point. A Year of Yes then reimagines the next steps, expanding feminist thinking from its roots in the struggle for gender parity to embrace broader social-justice issues of tolerance, inclusion, and diversity.”