From Francesca Capossela’s article “New York Billboards Become Platforms for Feminist Art” for Creators:
Re-appropriating billboards, spaces historically catering to the male gaze, allows female artists to get behind the lens and broadcast their art on a large scale. But the billboard’s function as a medium remains integral to the art experience, even if the typical content is subverted. The works on display were chosen to catch the viewer’s eye and make an immediate impression, the same goal of advertisers.
The pieces in The Future is Female were chosen from submissions addressing the title of the exhibition. “All the work submitted to the call for entry addressed female impact symbolically or figuratively,” curator Meryl Meisler tells the Creators Project. The exhibition does what all activism aims to do by transforming space once controlled by institutions. In that way, the space’s physical change is radical.