Editor’s Note: This story is part of Newsmakers, a new ARTnews series where we interview the movers and shakers who are making change in the art world.
Artist Kathryn Andrews has long been interested in disrupting established systems by inviting viewers of her wide-ranging practice to join in actively interrogating common subjects of the American zeitgeist. The Judith Center, her latest project, however, extends beyond a traditional studio practice and even art-making itself. The nonprofit assembles experts in their respective fields to research topics that prod gender equality across the United States. Artists are then invited to create posters based on the research that are exhibited together in museums. The Judith Center is also establishing a physical location in Los Angeles in January 2025 that will host conversations and events open to the community.
ARTnews spoke with Andrews about her approach to the Judith Center, goals for research, and the rich history of posters.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and concision.
ARTnews: How did you start working on the Judith Center?
Kathryn Andrews: In 2020, I made an artwork that was displayed on the facade of DePaul Art Museum [in Chicago], made in response to the imminent US presidential election, depicting the heads of many of the presidents from the 20th century to the present, and atop it was the names of all the women that had run for the presidency [and lost]. When you see all the names, it’s really shocking. Women have been fighting for so long for representation.
In conjunction with that show, we organized a panel bringing together women from many disciplines: a legal historian, a representative from the Center for American Women in Politics, and the lead cinematographer from the Kamala Harris Vice Presidential campaign. We had a conversation about the current state of sexism in the US and the challenge women have had in trying to gain equal representation, not only in the sphere of politics, but across various fields.
What I saw in that exchange was that there’s so much to be learned. When we’re in our own professional sphere, we often don’t understand the intricacies of how bias in one field produces bias in other fields. As a result of this conversation, I was so inspired that there was this arena which had not been largely explored and I thought, How can we look at this problem through a cross disciplinary lens? What new information would that reveal?
Shortly after that, I began working on creating the Judith Center. I decided that it would serve multiple purposes, engaging a range of initiatives, but at its core it centers around the arts and is educational in nature.
What projects are being worked on at the Judith Center?
Our very first initiative is called the Judith Center Poster Project. It will consist of 50 posters produced by 50 different artists, including women, non-binary persons, and men who either are American or have a very strong connection to the US. We’re partnering with many university art museums to exhibit these posters over a five-year period. The posters touch upon topics of great importance in the regions of our collaborating partners. I’m thinking of the project as a survey of contemporary sexism.
For example, our first drop is at the Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University [in East Lansing]. There, we’re looking at the impact of new technologies on gender and how that intersects with freedom of expression. We’re also going to be doing a panel that focuses on how new technologies are impacting the electoral process and, as a result, certain groups are more disadvantaged.
One of the reasons why we’re doing it there is because Michigan State University has a large focus on science research, and many people within the university are not only using AI but are deeply engaged in the business of producing new technology. It was also very important that the project began there because of the history of violent threats against female politicians in the state.
And every time the Judith Center Poster Project travels there is a new iteration of the project?
Yes, five artists will produce five posters that come out twice each year. The next time it occurs, there will be a new topic.
Martine Syms: SHE MAD: The Non-Hero, 2024.
Courtesy the Judith Center
What drew you to doing poster projects?
There is a super rich history of political printmaking that has not been adequately publicly historicized largely because that work was done by women. Posters were used to talk about really important issues and to reach a large audience because they are easy and cheap to produce and distribute. This medium has been important in the fight for gender equality. We want to foreground some of that history as we consider the very issues or questions of sexism that were so alive then and still today.
Will there be a public engagement component extending beyond the art world and universities?
Currently, the posters will mostly be exhibited at university art museums, as well as a few independent art museums. The audience is museum goers. I decided that these kinds of venues offer so much opportunity—not only can we engage with students who are coming through the system and beginning to think about how our everyday lives are constructed, but we can also engage with the public in that city who visit the museum. We have the ability to engage with academic communities who are some of the most forward thinkers on these questions. So, it offered a really rich setup.
We’re also launching a public space in downtown LA in January, and we will have a lot of programming there that’s also open to the public. Additionally, we will also offer programming in other settings. This past spring, for instance, we did a program at the Felix Art Fair. It’s possible that we could extend to a wider audience, but because most of our programming centers around art, we’re going to go to the spaces where that’s welcome.
What can we expect to see in the new LA space?
There are several other initiatives that we are developing. One is called Poetry X or Poetry Times, where we will be collaborating with writers, offering a space for writing workshops, and having poetry readings. Part of these efforts consider how we can not only produce art that engages people, but also how can we actually offer a space where something is produced like a resource for communities who are maybe under resourced and need the support of other creative people to have the courage to find their voice.
Others include a book club and a data visualization project, where we’re working with different designers who create a central repository of facts about gender oppression, as well as an oral history project where we hope to have different artists and persons in the arts engage in conversations around histories of underrecognized work produced by women artists.
Linda Vallejo: Self-Knowing in the New Age, 2024.
Courtesy the Judith Center.
What kinds of discussions do you hope to bring to the forefront with the Judith Center?
Much of what we’re talking about in terms of gender are questions that are looked at in, say, gender studies departments and universities. People historically have thought about gender studies as being a woman’s problem. We’re thinking about it differently. We’re very interested in inviting men and non-binary persons to the conversation. By looking at questions of masculinity and queer theory and how that helps us to think through how we fashion gender culturally, we can think about it in response to what’s fed to us by the culture at large.
One topic we’ve been developing content around is domestic violence, and how that varies in rural communities as opposed to urban communities. One of our partners is based in a rural location in a former Underground Railroad safe house and surrounded by mounds constructed by Native Americans. With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, there’s a direct impact on rural communities because of a correlation between unwanted pregnancy and domestic violence. In this location, there is a layering of histories of violence and limited resources. Not only are you dealing with the normalization of domestic violence, but also a normalization of unwanted pregnancy. But there are other extenuating circumstances that exacerbate it. We want to better understand the intricacies and how different fields correlate; for example, what’s going on with nurses and first responders in these situations, what are the legalities impacting the courts, and what’s happening with the police—all these factors add up to create a particularly toxic mix for both victims of abuse and for their abusers. People might be aware of some of these structures, but they might not know that with Roe v. Wade being overturned, there are higher incidences of unwanted pregnancy that has increased cases of domestic abuse.
What do you hope to gain from conducting these kinds of efforts?
We’re interested in spotlighting the complex histories that have brought us to where we are, and then asking questions from new directions to open new insights and bring together people from various fields who can begin to unpack some of the constraints of these structures from cross disciplinaries.
The information learned during the research process informs the creation and curation of the posters in response. We produce these conversations for the public and over time as more posters are produced, they will be exhibited en masse, with the idea that audiences will then have the opportunity to better understand many urgent topics across the US relating to gender inequality.
Have there been any surprises since beginning the Judith Center?
The biggest surprises has been seeing the degree to which men don’t conceptualize gender inequality as their problem and also seeing the degree to which women have internalized sexism as normal. I conducted several focus groups in the beginning of launching this and when I was telling a lot of different women what I was doing, I was encountered with sentiments like, “Oh, yeah, good luck, that’s not going anywhere.” And when I said, “Well, we’re gonna do it anyway.” The women then got very excited, as if it was a new idea that we could actually create change. There are lots of other examples, but the degree to which this phenomenon is so ingrained in our culture has been very surprising to me. In seeing people who have been working in this space for a long time, I’ve come to appreciate how courageous they are and how moving it is to see them persevere despite the odds. I’m still optimistic that change is possible.
Lynn Hershman Leeson: OWN YOUR IDENTITY, 2024.
Courtesy the Judith Center.
