Monika Fabijanska Curatorial Talk:

Independent art historian and the curator of the critically acclaimed exhibition Women at War, Monika Fabijanska will discuss works by leading contemporary women artists working in Ukraine, and provide a context for the current war as represented in art across media since the Russian annexation of Crimea and the creation of separatist “republics” in Donbas in 2014.

While history has largely been written–and painted–by men, this presentation will focus on women narrators of history, and will also examine gendered perspectives of war. The presentation will offer an insight into Eastern European feminisms, which are significantly different from the Western mold.

Monika Fabijanska is a NYC-based independent art historian and curator specializing in women's and feminist art. Her exhibition of Ukrainian artists Women at War (Fridman Gallery, 2022), listed among ten best art shows of 2022 by both The Washington Post and Frieze, is touring university museums and galleries in the U.S. and Canada through 2025. Her Betsy Damon. Passages: Rites and Rituals (La MaMa Galleria, 2021) was among The New York Times’ best shows of 2021, following ecofeminism(s) (Thomas Erben Gallery, 2020), and The Un-Heroic Act: Representations of Rape in Contemporary Women's Art in the U.S. (John Jay College CUNY, 2018), which was one of Hyperallergic best shows of the year.

Fabijanska provided the initiative and curatorial consulting for The Museum of Modern Art acquisition and retrospective exhibition of Alina Szapocznikow (2012) and consulted on WACK! Art in the Feminist Revolution with curator Connie Butler (MoCA LA, 2007). Her writing has been published in exhibition catalogs, edited volumes, ASAP Journal, Women’s Art Journal, as well as The Brooklyn Rail, and BLOK. Fabijanska teaches Curatorial Practice at the New York University and is a member of the College Art Association’s Committee on Women in the Arts. She is currently working on a book about Betsy Damon, and an international museum survey exhibition for which she received a curatorial research grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation. www.monikafabijanska.com

A Q&A will follow this presentation.

Funded by the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, University of Manitoba, through the Margaret Laurence Endowment Fund.