Group show
Upcoming
Taking Back Our Space: Photographic Perspectives
20 Sep 2026 — 2 May 2027 at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
· New York
Marianne Wex
Nona Faustine
Martine Gutierrez
K8 Hardy
Yuki Kihara
Joiri Minaya
Paulina Olowska
Wendy Red Star
Exhibition. Sep 20, 2026–May 2, 2027.
In 1972, the West German artist Marianne Wex began a visual survey of gendered body language. She picked up her camera and covertly photographed people in her hometown of Hamburg, observing how men and women were socialized to inhabit space differently. She also rephotographed pictures from advertisements, newspapers, magazines, film, television, and art catalogues, pasting the images onto boards organized into categories like "standing arms," "sitting legs," "lying down," and "possessive holds." For Wex, "these mostly unconscious actions" were "essential parts of our communication."
Presenting a robust selection, the exhibition also brings Wex's watershed feminist project into dialogue with contemporary artists Nona Faustine, Martine Gutierrez, K8 Hardy, Yuki Kihara, Joiri Minaya, Paulina Olowska, and Wendy Red Star. These contemporary practitioners reappraise the relationship of bodies to public space from Black, queer, and 21st-century feminist perspectives.
In this context, the notion of "taking back space" resonates as a reclamation of physical territory, historical narratives, and the ability to represent oneself.
In 1972, the West German artist Marianne Wex began a visual survey of gendered body language. She picked up her camera and covertly photographed people in her hometown of Hamburg, observing how men and women were socialized to inhabit space differently. She also rephotographed pictures from advertisements, newspapers, magazines, film, television, and art catalogues, pasting the images onto boards organized into categories like "standing arms," "sitting legs," "lying down," and "possessive holds." For Wex, "these mostly unconscious actions" were "essential parts of our communication."
Presenting a robust selection, the exhibition also brings Wex's watershed feminist project into dialogue with contemporary artists Nona Faustine, Martine Gutierrez, K8 Hardy, Yuki Kihara, Joiri Minaya, Paulina Olowska, and Wendy Red Star. These contemporary practitioners reappraise the relationship of bodies to public space from Black, queer, and 21st-century feminist perspectives.
In this context, the notion of "taking back space" resonates as a reclamation of physical territory, historical narratives, and the ability to represent oneself.
About the artist
Marianne Wex
1937–2020
Marianne Wex was a German feminist photographer, author and self-healer.
About the artist →
Nona Faustine
1977–2025
Nona Faustine was an American photographer and visual artist. Her work focused on history, identity, representation, and what it means to be a woman in the 21st century. Her artwork is in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum and the Carnegie Museum.
About the artist →About the venue
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
· New York
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of architecture and design, drawing, painting, sculpture…
