Institute of Contemporary Art Miami ICA Miami

“Miriam Schapiro: 1967–1972” features a concise selection of Schapiro’s monumental paintings, examining a crucial period of development in the work of the legendary feminist artist. The works on view from this time see Schapiro’s hard-edge geometric abstraction evolve into her gendered, anthropomorphic “central core imagery” and lay the groundwork for her explorations of collage and craft within the Pattern and Decoration movement. The exhibition showcases Schapiro’s pioneering work exploring early digital image production technologies, presaging contemporary artists’ practices today in the realm of feminist and digital art.

Feminist art of the 1970s is often associated with interior spaces and domesticity, both in terms of its subject matter as well as the space it originates from—artists’ studios commonly located in living rooms or bedrooms. While Schapiro, an integral figure in second-wave American feminist art, grappled extensively with these themes, her unique visual language was simultaneously informed by the vast Southern California landscape and her work with the rapidly developing computer technologies of her time.

The exhibition includes a group of hard-edge paintings. Works like Canyon (1967) and Rosarita’s Blocks (1968) relate to rock formations and vernacular architecture that Schapiro encountered after moving from New York to San Diego. Also on view is Big Ox (1967), one of her first “central core” paintings. With its vivid orange “X” set against a silver ground with a circular opening at its center, the form sparked new discourse about what an inherently female iconography could be and about how female artists could assert themselves.

In 1969, Schapiro began working with the computer science department at the University of California, San Diego, where she continued developing the geometric form featured in Big Ox. Here, Schapiro used early digital technologies to create drawings of interlocking rectangular and rounded volumes, which she would translate into paintings. In her “Mylar Series” (1970–71) enamel and tape compositions appear to float on monochromatic, reflective mylar surfaces. “I saw the machine as an aid to thought,” Schapiro later reflected. “The [computer] paintings were a culmination to me of a total self-assertion begun in Ox.” In the exhibition, Big Ox is accompanied by a series of large-scale paintings that show three-dimensional forms rendered in hues of red or yellow. Through distorted perspective and dramatic angles, the shapes appear monumental in scale.

The exhibition concludes with two early Pattern and Decoration works that point toward the next phase of Schapiro’s practice. Lady Gengi’s Maze and Flying Carpet (both 1972) combine geometric renderings of architectural elements with collaged fabric. The foreground structure in Lady Gengi’s Maze resembles an “X,” while the collaged fabric in Flying Carpet is organized around a circular opening at its center, both expanding on motifs established in Big Ox and hinting at the textile-based works that would define Schapiro’s later career.

Miriam Schapiro (b. 1923, Toronto; d. 2015, Hampton Bays, New York), a key figure of American feminist art, is perhaps best known for running the Feminist Art Program at the California Institute of the Arts alongside Judy Chicago, which produced the collaborative installation Womanhouse (1972). She would become a leading voice in the Pattern and Decoration movement, which championed motifs and techniques rejected by the Western canon due to their associations with feminine labor and craft vocations. Her solo exhibitions include “Miriam Schapiro: A Retrospective” at the Lowe Museum, University of Miami (2001), and “Miriam Schapiro: A Woman’s Way” at the National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC (1997). Her work is held in major public collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Peter and Irene Ludwig Collection, Germany.

“Miriam Schapiro: 1967–1972” is organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, and curated by Stephanie Seidel, Monica and Blake Grossman Curator, and Amanda Morgan, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions and Publications.