Positive Fragmentation: From the Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

For many artists, the act of creation begins with one of destruction as they dissect shape, color, perspective, text, idea, or stereotype. For some, the result is enough: pulling apart and fragmenting images and ideas exposes what lies beneath or heralds the inherent value of each part. Other artists assemble fragments to create a new whole defined by its different parts. This exhibition explores the impulses that drive these creative approaches in the work of contemporary artists.

Positive Fragmentation includes over 180 prints drawn from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, each a work by a contemporary artist who employs fragmentation in different ways. Feminist scholar and critic, Lucy Lippard, describes positive fragmentation, or the "collage aesthetic," as particularly suited to historically marginalized artists (including women), as it "willfully takes apart what is or is supposed to be and rearranges it in ways that suggest what it could be."

Polly Apfelbaum
Jennifer Bartlett
Christiane Baumgartner
Louise Bourgeois
Cecily Brown 
Nicole Eisenman 
Ellen Gallagher
Jenny Holzer 
Nicola Lopez
Julie Mehretu
Sarah Morris
Wangechi Mutu
Judy Pfaff
Wendy Red Star
Betye Saar
Lorna Simpson
Swoon
Barbara Takenaga
Mickalene Thomas
Kara Walker

Organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts
Curated by Virginia Treanor, Senior Curator, National Museum of Women in the Arts; and Kathryn Wat, Deputy Director for Art, Programs, and Public Engagement, and Chief Curator, National Museum of Women in the Arts

Artwork: Wendy Red Star, Native American, Crow (b. 1981) 
iilaalée = car (goes by itself) + ii = by means of which + dáanniili = we parade, 2015-2016 
Lithograph with archival pigment ink photographs
Sheet: 24 x 38 inches
Frame: 29 1/8 x 43 1/8 inches
Published by Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts, Pendleton, OR
Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer

This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.