{
  "id": 8907976,
  "title": "Perfect posture? MoMA exhibition explores perspectives on body politics in public spaces",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/21/perfect-posture-moma-exhibition-explores-perspectives-on-body",
  "topic": "culture",
  "section": "Culture",
  "published": "2026-09-21T11:24:38.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Art Newspaper",
    "slug": "the-art-newspaper",
    "url": "https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/09/21/perfect-posture-moma-exhibition-explores-perspectives-on-body-politics-in-public-spaces"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In the 1970s, German photographer Marianne Wex meticulously documented the body language of Hamburg's residents, examining how gender was constructed and imposed in public spaces. Acquired by New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 2018, Wex's ground-breaking series Let’s Take Back Our Space: 'Female' and 'Male' Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures serves as the foundation for a new exhibition, Taking Back Our Space: Photographic Perspectives. The show aims to spark conversation between Wex's project and contemporary artists who utilize photography to delve into the intricate relationship between bodies, space, and feminist perspectives.\n\nRoxana Marcoci, acting chief curator of photography at MoMA, believes Wex's work can be seen as a seminal moment in feminist art, as well as a lens through which to reevaluate the politics of the body and public space. By incorporating intersectional feminist viewpoints that consider race, colonialism, Indigenous sovereignty, sexuality, and self-representation, the seven artists featured in the exhibition expand upon Wex's original inquiry. Their works include Nona Faustine's exploration of locations with histories of enslavement and racial violence, Martine Gutierrez's challenge to the authority that constructs identity, Joiri Minaya's dismantling of exoticized and commodified representations of women and the Caribbean, Yuki Kihara's shift from a colonial gaze to self-representation through Indigenous Samoan fa’afafine models, Wendy Red Star's preservation of Indigenous memory through archives, and K8 Hardy and Paulina Olowska's examination of the constant performance and rewriting of gender and identity through body language and gesture.\n\nThe issues Wex identified over 50 years ago are still relevant in political debates, with the focus shifting to new complexities. Marcoci emphasizes that the exhibition does not simply reaffirm Wex's historical importance but rather asks what her project enables today and establishes a critical framework for artists to continue testing, complicating, and extending.",
  "summary": "Seven contemporary artists respond to Marianne Wex’s groundbreaking 1970s feminist work on body language in the New York show",
  "key_points": [
    "Let’s Take Back Our Space series acquired by MoMA in 2018, foundation for new exhibition.",
    "Seven contemporary artists expand Wex's inquiry with intersectional feminist perspectives."
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}