NAWA can never shine the light too brightly on this legendary artist and long-time NAWA member and supporter. For sixty years, Ringgold has drawn from both personal autobiography and collective histories to both document her life and to illustrate the struggles for social justice and equity. “Faith Ringgold: American People” is the most comprehensive exhibition to date of this groundbreaking artist’s vision. And for this visitor, it was an eye-opening revelation. This is also the first full presentation of her French collection in decades. Picasso himself can’t escape her revisionist take on his Les Demoiselles d’Avignon masterwork. Through the magnificence of her combined oeuvre in paintings, soft sculptures, and experimental story quilts, she stands as one of the most indelible artists in our American history. (sb)

Faith Ringgold, Matisse’s Model: The French Collection Part I, #5, 1991. Acrylic on canvas, printed and tie-dyed pieced fabric, ink, 73 ¼ x 79 ¾ in. (186.1 × 202.6 cm). Baltimore Museum of Art; Frederick R. Weisman Contemporary Art Acquisitions Endowment. © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2021

Gillian Wearing’s photographs, videos, sculptures, and paintings probe the tensions between self and society in an increasingly media-saturated world. She makes us question, above all, identity, and how comfortable or uncomfortable we may be with how we define ourselves. This is the first retrospective of Wearing’s work in North America. Featuring more than 100 pieces, the exhibition traces the artist’s development from her earliest Polaroids to her latest self-portraits.

I found this exhibition to be both haunting and hypnotic. The artist wears in each photograph the masks she has created, in this instance, as part of Spiritual Family self-portraits, she embodies Georgia O’Keeffe and Diane Arbus, among many others. Surrealist Meret Oppenheim is also represented, in an arresting and unexpected pose.