The Judith Center is an American nonprofit organization that launched in 2024, aiming for gender equality in art, science, and politics. Founded by Los Angeles-based artist Kathryn Andrews, the organization aims to carry out its missions through art-focused initiatives such as art exhibitions, commissions, talks, and events. They will carry out these programs by partnering with art institutions such as museums, universities, art fairs, and nonprofit organizations. These are places where women artists have been historically underrepresented.
In carrying out these initiatives, the Judith Center will also engage with different professionals in their respective fields to ensure the quality of their programs. One of their debut initiatives has been an exhibition titled Women in Print: Expanding the LA Canon at the Felix Art Fair in Los Angeles. The exhibition presents poster art made by women artists from the 1970s to the early 2000s, while also including newly commissioned posters from 9 contemporary artists. The new commissions showcase the organization’s commitment to the livelihood of contemporary women artists, while the exhibition gives established women artists some much-deserved recognition, reflecting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Gender Equality.
The 2022 Burns Halperin Report found that only 11 percent of acquisitions in 31 US museums between 2008 and 2020 are works by female-identifying artists, a stark contrast since women account for 46.1 percent of working artists in the United States. This is where The Judith Center comes in, to ensure that women have their well-deserved place in art institutions.
The nonprofit is also using art as a tool to combat gender disparity in other fields such as science, economy, and politics. This is done because The Judith Center’s founder, artist Kathryn Andrews, believes that art has the power to challenge people’s perspectives on a very basic level. At its core, art can provide hope for a better future while criticizing major issues of today.
One of the Judith Center’s debut programs is an exhibit at the Felix Art Fair Los Angeles titled Women in Print: Expanding the LA Canon. The exhibit runs from 28 February to 3 March 2024 during the duration of the fair and was created in collaboration with the Center for Political Graphics (CSPG).
The exhibition showcases posters by women artists that have made an impact on activism and commerce. These include colourful screen prints by Sister Corita Kent and Elizabeth Atterbury’s equally colourful embossed and chine collé posters.
They have also not forgotten to include pieces from the iconic Guerrilla Girls, who are renowned for their constant fight for women’s place in art institutions.
The exhibition also comes with a talk between Kathryn Andrews, CSPG founder and art historian, Carroll Wells, and Linda Vallejo and Barbara Carrasco, both artists whose works are featured in the exhibit. The talk helps attendees understand the exhibition deeper by dissecting the different women-led printmaking collectives and organizations in Los Angeles that were active from the 1970s to the early 2000s. It also shared how women and artists of colour were disadvantaged and struggled to find institutional representation.
In an interview with the Artists4Democracy newsletter, The Judith Center founder, Kathryn Andrews, shared her future plans for the organization. Including a 50-artist poster commission that will all speak on gender inequality that will eventually turn into a traveling exhibition.
“I want to spotlight what sexism looks like now, in this moment, particularly with the rise of new technologies that can be weaponized,” she shared in the interview.
She hopes for a two-way process that will require something more than just empathy, a gap that she hopes The Judith Center will fill.