The artist, feminist activist and Franklin Furnace founder Martha Wilson has been a force of transformative change within the context of early American feminist and socially engaged practices, and in her role as a disseminator of like-minded individuals’ works.

Her works have explored the fluidity of gender and identity, in the form of fictive appearances and double transformations (foreshadowing the work of Cindy Sherman and similar practices of the 80s and later), while consistently asserting her own artistic agency and that of others she has championed. The exhibition presents three interwoven layers of her career over the last forty years, which began in the early 1970s in Halifax (where she settled to pursue a doctorate in English), and continued in New York City where she moved in 1974. One part presents her early solo photographic and video work in which she plays with age, gender and social identities (many parallels can be made with the work of Suzy Lake who was based in Montreal at the time). Another part focuses on her performance work in New York with the group DISBAND and in solo performances in which she “invaded” the persona of female figures of the Conservative Right. The third part examines her influential role as Director of Franklin Furnace in New York from 1976 to 1996 and after, when the organization transformed into a digital platform.

The exhibition and tour are made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust, the ICI Board of Trustees, and ICI Benefactors Barbara and John Robinson.

The Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery’s contemporary exhibition program is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.