Join us for an opening reception in celebration of 21c Louisville’s newest exhibition, The Future is Female, featuring special guest speaker Helen Toomer, Director of PULSE Contemporary Art Fair, in conversation with 21c Museum Director and Chief Curator Alice Gray Stites. Doors open at 6pm and the discussion begins at 6:30pm.

About the exhibition
Gleaming acrylic fingernails glued into patterned, reptilian forms that emerge from the wall; barnacles and ceramic teeth encrusted in life-size human figures in decay; cement seeping through lace and paint; haunting words about the present overlaid on imagery of the past: surface tension abounds in this exploration of contemporary feminist art from the 21c collection. The second exhibition organized in honor of 21c’s tenth anniversary, The Future is Female expands upon the themes of A Global Gathering—portraiture, politics, and the environment—through radical transformations of materials, myths, and art-making. The continuing, unparalleled influence of feminist art from the 1970s is evident in the form and content of the paintings, sculptures, photography, video, and found objects created by seventeen artists from India, South Africa, Sweden, and the US. Investigating identity, consumer culture, ecology, history, and mythology, these recent works extend the legacy of feminist art and illuminate the essential role of art to question, subvert, and reveal how we live and engage ourselves, others, and the world we share and shape.

About Helen Toomer
Helen Toomer is a respected leader in the art and design industries, with years of experience in event development, marketing and partnerships in both Europe and the United States. Helen is the Director of PULSE Contemporary Art Fair and previously served as the Director of Collective Design Fair which she helped launch in New York in 2013. In addition to her art fair experience, Helen is also an Adjunct Professor at The Fashion Institute of Technology and Sotheby’s Institute of Art. She co-founded an art gallery on New York’s Lower East Side from 2011–2013, which supported emerging contemporary artists.

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Image: Monica Cook (American), Phosphene, 2014. Mixed media.