The Gallery Exhibition runs June 20 – July 12, 2020 at Turner Carroll
Artwork in the gallery exhibition may be seen here.
Online Exhibition runs June 20 – August 12, 2020.
Artworks in the online exhibition may be seen by clicking on the image below.
Artists Judy Chicago and street artist Swoon (who has inspired an entire generation of female street artists) teamed up with Hans Ulrich Obrist and the Serpentine Galleries in London, along with the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, D.C., Jane Fonda and her Fire Drill Fridays, and Greenpeace. Together, they launched #CreateArtForEarth, a global creative campaign that encourages artists to address the climate crisis in order to inspire action. #CreateArtForEarth is also part of the Serpentine’s “Back to Earth,” a new multi-year project to spotlight artists of all kinds and to encourage art that addresses the climate crisis and inspires action.
Judy Chicago in partnership with the Turner Carroll Gallery, takes this innovative social media-centered, creative campaign to the next level by curating a virtual reality online art exhibition as well as an exhibition at Turner Carroll Gallery’s physical space in Santa Fe, titled “Solstice: Create Art for Earth,” which will debut on June 20, 2020 to coincide with the summer solstice. Artists from around the world are invited to submit artworks in all media—created specifically for this project—that envision a better future for the earth.
The summer solstice has long been a symbol of new beginnings, light, spiritual journeys, and a celebration of nature. As such, this project is in keeping with Judy Chicago’s long and celebrated career in that it encourages new artistic thinking that can help bring about change as some of the artists’ earlier projects have done. Chicago’s interest in environmental issues dates back to the 1980s when Greenpeace commissioned her to do a poster in support of their ocean interventions. Her concerns for animal rights were one of her motivations for creating “KittyCity: A Feline Book of Hours,” a series of watercolors collected in a book that examined inter-species relationships. More recently, her project, “The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction” was premiered at National Museum of Women in the Arts in the Fall of 2019, and will be part of her June 2021 retrospective at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
Artists in the exhibition were asked to consider the following questions central to the #CreateArtForEarth project: What are the major problems facing the world today? Can you create an image or images depicting those challenges? What kind of world would you like to see? How can we achieve that? Can you “picture” a world of equality and justice?
Equality and justice are the foundation of Chicago’s nearly six-decade career, and she has built a legacy based on her artistic fight for the preservation of women’s history and achievements. With this new project, she extends her commitment to justice to animal rights and climate justice as an extension of her passionate belief in the rights of all living beings.
10% of sales proceeds donated to Through the Flower, the nonprofit founded by Judy Chicago in 1977 with the mission to counter the erasure of women’s achievements through art. In 2019 Through the Flower opened the Through the Flower Art Space at its headquarters in Belen, New Mexico, where visitors can learn about the history of Judy Chicago and her photographer husband, Donald Woodman, view art exhibitions, utilize research materials, and attend public programs.
Since its inception, Turner Carroll Gallery has dedicated itself to artwork that compels social change. Though Tonya Turner Carroll and Michael Carroll are long-time followers of Judy Chicago’s life’s work, it wasn’t until they started seeking Chicago’s works for collectors due to its immense social impact and significance in the history of art, that Tonya, Michael and Judy got to know each other and began working together. The relationship between Turner Carroll Gallery and Judy Chicago is a natural one. Like Chicago, Turner Carroll has always paved its own way in the art world, seeking new technology and media as they become available, to reach a wider audience for the fullest expression of their message. As Judy Chicago said in a recent conversation with the Turner Carrolls, “change does not happen at the center of the art world; it happens on the fringes.” That’s what the collaboration between Chicago and Turner Carroll represents—like-minded people embracing the most effective tools available to start social change from the edges of possibility and bring it to the center of social attention.
ABOUT JUDY CHICAGO
Judy Chicago is one of the most influential artists of our century. Social justice has driven her career and she has fought for equality in the art world for women and marginalized artists for the entirety of her six-decade career. From her early career, her work was often overlooked by male curators and critics favoring artwork created by men. Rather than backing down, Chicago took on the challenge of changing the art world through the founding of the first Feminist Art Program, her epic work, “The Dinner Party” and the K-12 “Dinner Party” Curriculum and her subsequent projects and images. Now, Chicago is taking on the challenge of trying to bring about world-wide change through art by using her enormous stature in the art world. With her “Solstice” project, she hopes to use art to bring the same degree of attention to our planet’s needs as she brought to the need to recognize women’s contributions throughout history.
ABOUT TURNER CARROLL
Turner Carroll Gallery + Art Advisors exhibits international contemporary art by established and emerging museum-track artists. Founded in 1991 by Tonya Turner Carroll and Michael Carroll, the gallery embodies extensive knowledge of the history of art and vast experience in all aspects of the art world. Turner Carroll authors artist monographs, serves on boards of art museums, foundations, and public arts boards, manages artist estates, curates museum and art space exhibitions internationally, and advises private and corporate art collections. Turner Carroll Gallery artists are featured in top private and museum collections worldwide.