An Introduction to Making Their Mark
Making Their Mark is a traveling exhibition of works from the Shah Garg Collection, featuring up to over 80 of the most significant women artists from the last eight decades.
The Other Side The Other Side (2021) by Allison KatzShah Garg Foundation
A New York debut, to commence a traveling trajectory
Debuted in New York from October 2023 - March 2024, Making Their Mark welcomed over 50,000 visitors. The exhibition travels to Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) October 2024, before journeying to the Kemper Art Museum in St. Louis, September 2025.
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Located in New York's historic Chelsea Arts District
Making Their Mark New York was located on the 1st and 2nd floors of 548 West 22nd Street, a historic building which formerly housed the Dia Art Foundation from 1987 to 2004.
Special artist talks & programming
Artists Howardena Pindell, Firelei Báez, and Tschabalala Self discussed monumentality and modernity in a conversation moderated by Glenn Adamson.
Artist talk: Disobedient bodies
Artists Joan Semmel, Cecily Brown, and Jenna Gribbon sat down to discuss their work in a conversation moderated by Connie Butler, Director of MoMA PS1.
Celebrating Making Their Mark: The Next GenerationShah Garg Foundation
Partnering with the NYC Department of Education
Making Their Mark: New York welcomed over 500 students and 125 teachers from the NYC Public Schools system for sketching activities and tours. See our "Making Their Mark: The Next Generation" story to explore our student exhibition!
UntitledShah Garg Foundation
Recharting art history
Janet Sobel's Untitled, 1946, was displayed at the entrance of the show. This introductory piece set the stage for Making Their Mark's women artists who continue to rechart art history through their singular, iconic practices.
From household canvases to prominent exhibitions
In 1939, at the age of forty-five, Sobel began painting on any materials she could find - often belonging to her son, Sol. Recognizing his mother’s ability, Sol shared her paintings with influential figures including Peggy Guggenheim, who gave her a solo exhibition in 1946.
Untitled Untitled (1946) by Janet SobelShah Garg Foundation
An unrecognized inspiration
In 1958, the critic Clement Greenberg acknowledged that Sobel’s innovative work had “made an impression” on Jackson Pollock (1912–1956), relating that the pioneering Abstract Expressionist had admired “one or two curious paintings” at Guggenheim’s gallery.
Political RibbonsShah Garg Foundation
Take a ribbon!
Andrea Bowers, Political Ribbons, 2022, is located at the entrance of the exhibition, and visitors are invited to take one of the ribbons from this piece. Each ribbon is silkscreened with a message that brings urgent focus to social justice and women's rights.
Making Their Mark: New York Installation ViewShah Garg Foundation
Gestural abstraction
The exhibition is grouped by room theme. This first room titled Gestural Abstraction, displayed the works of artists such as Joan Mitchell and Aria Dean, who allowed abstraction to become a vehicle for issues of gender, race, power, desire, and performativity.
Making Their Mark: New York Installation ViewShah Garg Foundation
Pixelated abstraction
Works in this section establish a rich dialogue between the handmade, the mechanical, and the digital, forging new forms of subjectivity in a hyper-mediated reality.
For Philadelphia ThreeShah Garg Foundation
Luminous abstraction
This section of the exhibition focuses on a group of works that use light as a material, with remarkable examples by California Light and Space artists in dialogue with artworks that use strategies of pouring and stroking.
Installation ViewShah Garg Foundation
Mythology and spirituality
This section focuses on artists who radically question rigid distinctions between art and craft, subverting accepted hierarchies of taste.
Installation ViewShah Garg Foundation
Embodied abstraction and portraiture
In this section, artists look at the body through the lens of abstraction, employing experimental and subjective perspectives.
Begin exploring the first room of the exhibition here: Making Their Mark I: Gestural Abstraction!
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