The Personal Is Political: Feminist Art from the Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell Collection is a two-site exhibition which featured works from the private collection of Sara Vance Waddell, a Cincinnati-based arts philanthropist and advertising media executive who has been consciously collecting feminist-leaning art over much of the past decade.  

Wave Pool Gallery in Camp Washington and The Dorothy W. and C. Lawson Reed, Jr. Gallery at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning both hosted shows of artwork by iconic artists in the Vance Waddell’s collection, including Louise Bourgeois, Tania Bruguera, Deborah Kass, Barbara Kruger, Kara Walker, Catherine Opie, Lorna Simpson, Carolee Schneeman, Kiki Smith, Mickalene Thomas, and Carrie Mae Weems.

More than half a dozen 2-D and 3-D works by the aforementioned well-established artists as well as some exciting up-and-coming contemporary artists, were on display at Wave Pool. 

Using a framework of the rallying slogan of the various student movements during the Civil Rights era of the late 1960s—and opening at Wave Pool exactly one week after the 2017 Women’s March on Washington—The Personal Is Political aimed to demonstrate the ways in which feminist artists make connections between the intimate details of our daily lives and our ever-expanding understanding of the body politic. 

Pieces were paired throughout both exhibitions in the effort to reveal ways in which femme-identifying artists have and are working to resist oppression, subvert public scrutiny, and suggest alternative visual paradigms within the personal and political spheres.

The Personal is Political was organized by independent curator Maria Seda-Reeder, and is on view at Wave Pool’s gallery until March 11th, 2017.

An installation by local artist Sharareh Khosravani opened on the same evening in Wave Pool’s upstairs community gallery. Khrosravani’s exhibition remained up until February 12th.