Some thoughts on the WACK! show

I commend the M.O.C.A in Los Angeles for exhibiting the WACK!” show at the Geffen Contemporary. It’s a survey of the feminist art movement that made a huge impact on the art world during the 1970s. These women artists daringly challenged the art edifice by attacking long held notions.

In art history, students learn to study art using the Form and Content method, and must take into consideration the cultural context within which the artworks were made. When viewing the WACK! show, the viewer is certainly bruisingly aware of the Content. The ideas, meanings and messages are abundantly clear. The raw, angry energy, erotic stirrings, ironic juxtapositions, and metaphoric reversals stay with you well after leaving the show, so on that level the works in the WACK! exhibit are successful.

And the works certainly had an impact on the cultural context during the 70’s. They were the visual vanguard during a period of cultural revolution, when gender issues clashed with the patriarchal status quo, and feminism gave mainstream art a highly influential kick-in-the-pants. Hooray for feminist art.

Now, that leaves the Form. The art object. Here’s where WACK! disappoints. With the exception of a few notable works that stand out as vibrant exceptions, too many of the works are naïve, clumsy, strident, gratuitously repulsive, and often violent. Figures are amateurishly proportioned, brushstrokes are thoughtless, and blatant, intimate body parts leave no room for metaphor or introspection.

That said, WACK! is nevertheless an ambitious show and gives us a broad overview of at seminal moment in the history of modern art. Four hundred and fifty works by artists from twenty-one countries were assembled in a truly block-buster show that only MOCA’s Geffen Center could pull off.
Hooray for M.O.C.A.