Image: MCA Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago has opened ‘From the Center: Looking at Lucy Lippard,’ an exhibition tracing the influence of the art historian, critic, curator and activist through works in the museum’s collection. Installed across the museum’s second, third and fourth floors, the exhibition runs from August 1, 2026, through July 11, 2027.
Organized by Jamillah James, Manilow Senior Curator, with Curatorial Assistant Korina Hernandez, the exhibition examines the ways Lippard’s writing, exhibitions and activism shaped contemporary art over six decades. The presentation is divided across themes associated with her intellectual and curatorial history: women artists and the aesthetics of Minimalism and Conceptualism; cultural work and activism; and land, borders and territory.
Born in New York in 1937, Lippard lives in Galisteo, New Mexico, according to the MCA. The museum describes her work as influential in the development and interpretation of Pop, Conceptual, feminist and Land art, as well as in the institutional representation of women artists and artists of color. Her influence has also extended to subsequent generations of curators, critics and artists.
The exhibition’s historical framework includes Lippard’s publications ‘Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966–1972’ (1973), ‘From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women’s Art’ (1976), ‘Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory’ (1983) and ‘Mixed Blessings: New Art in Multicultural America’ (1990). It also references her exhibitions ‘Eccentric Abstraction’ (1966), ‘Twenty-Six Contemporary Women Artists’ (1971) and the series known as the ‘Numbers’ exhibitions, held from 1969 to 1974.
Rather than presenting a conventional biography, ‘From the Center’ uses works by artists Lippard curated, studied or championed, alongside later artists whose practices engage with related concerns. The MCA’s featured collection works include Ana Mendieta’s ‘Untitled: Silueta Series,’ made in Mexico in 1973 and 1991, and Howardena Pindell’s ‘Untitled #20 (Dutch Wives Circled and Squared)’ from 1978. Mendieta’s work is a silver dye-bleach print from the MCA Collection, while Pindell’s mixed-media canvas entered the collection as a gift from Albert A. Robin by exchange.
The exhibition is presented in the Carol & Douglas Cohen Gallery, Dr. Paul and Dorie Sternberg Family Gallery, Ed and Jackie Rabin Gallery, Marion & Jerome H. Stone Gallery and McCormick Tribune Gallery. Lead support comes from the Pritzker Traubert Collection Exhibition Fund, Cari and Michael Sacks, and the Zell Family Foundation, with major support from Laura and Tony Davis and Linden Capital Partners, Robin Loewenberg Tebbe and Mark Tebbe, the Terra Foundation for American Art, and the Wagner Foundation. The presentation is also supported by the MCA’s Women Artists Initiative.
