Last year, Alabama passed the Human Life Protection Act, which bans abortions and criminalizes doctors who perform the procedure. A few weeks after, Georgia passed a law that prohibits abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which usually happens after 6 weeks of pregnancy (most women wouldn’t know they were pregnant yet). Legal abortion is under acute attack throughout the United States, with fifty-eight restrictive laws passed in the country since January 2019.
Abortion Is Normal is an exhibition organized by a collective of cultural practitioners as an urgent call-to-action to raise both awareness and funding in support of accessible, safe, and legal abortion. The exhibition brings together a heterogeneous array of artists countering with their personal response to abortion and abortion access in order to create an inclusive and empathetic entry point to this conversation.
“This show is about reproductive rights, and more expansively about our right to own our own bodies. Many of the artists have not physically gone through an abortion procedure, but have a shared understanding that safe, accessible reproductive rights are absolutely necessary” says co-curator, Jasmine Wahi.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Allison Janae Hamilton, Ameya Marie, Amy Khoshbin, Andrea Chung, Arlene Shechet, Barbara Kruger, Betty Tompkins, Carroll Dunham, Catherine Opie, Cecily Brown, Chloe Wise, Chris Myers, Christen Clifford, Cindy Sherman, Delano Dunn, Dominique Duroseau, Elektra KB, Fin Simonetti, Grace Graupe Pillard, Hank Willis Thomas, hayv kahraman, Jaishri Abichandani, Jane Kaplowitz, Jon Kessler, Jonathan Horowitz, Judith Bernstein, Judith Hudson, Laurie Simmons, Louise Lawler, Lyle Ashton Harris, Marilyn Minter, Michele Pred, Mika Rottenberg, Nadine Faraj, Nan Goldin, Natalie Frank, Rob Pruitt, Ryan McGinley, Sarah Sze, Shirin Neshat, Shoshanna Weinberger, Sojourner Truth Parsons, Sue Williams, Suzy Lake, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Viva Ruiz/Thank God For Abortion, Wangechi Mutu, Xaviera Simmons, Walter Robinson, and Zoe Buckman, among others.
The exhibition divides its time at Eva Presenhuber at (39 Great Jones Street) from Jan 9-18, and at Arsenal Contemporary (214 Bowery) from Jan 21 – Feb 1. It is co-curated by Jasmine Wahi and Rebecca Pauline Jampol, and co-organized by Marilyn Minter, Gina Nanni, Laurie Simmons, and Sandy Tait. Works are available for viewing and purchase through Artsy.
All of the proceeds from the sale of this work will go to Downtown for Democracy, with the PAC distributing half of proceeds to fund voter education and advocacy specifically on reproductive rights, and half of the funds to Planned Parenthood PAC efforts in upcoming 2020 elections. More information is available at abortionisnormal.org.
