Marcia Tucker, the first woman curator at the Whitney Museum, was fired for challenging the establishment. Her reaction? To found the New Museum and make space for traditionally excluded artists. Now, for the first time in film, BAD GIRL MARCIA TUCKER asks what we can learn from this trailblazer who upended NYC’s art world.
SYNOPSIS
Marcia Tucker’s influence is everywhere, and yet her name is nowhere. Today, she is best known for starting the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City in 1977. But there is so much more to her story. Serving as a call to action in this new era of human rights regression, BAD GIRL MARCIA TUCKER illuminates the life of this unsung feminist iconoclast in order to reveal how the art world mirrors our world more broadly.
The film proudly takes its name from Marcia’s transgressive 1994 “Bad Girls” exhibition, which featured artists confronting gender, race, class, and age issues head-on. Though at the time the show was heavily criticized, we see just how prescient she was in her vision to break down barriers and amplify a multitude of voices.
Almost twenty-years after her death, BAD GIRL MARCIA TUCKER demands that we re-examine Marcia’s trailblazing ideas, both inside and outside gallery walls.
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Director Simone Estrin
Simone Estrin (she/ her) is a Toronto-based filmmaker, programmer, and curator whose work questions the experience of art and its value for society. Her short film, A SHIFT IN THE LANDSCAPE, about the battle to protect Richard Serra’s sculpture, “Shift”, has screened to international audiences including at the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, and The Chinati Foundation in Marfa. She is an Associate International Features Programmer at Hot Docs, and contributes to film programming at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Le Festival International du Film sur l'Art. With both the role of the artist and the place of the audience top of her mind, Simone’s films ask us to confront our preconceived notions about contemporary art and its relationship to our everyday lives.
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Women Make Movies (WMM), Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit media arts organization registered with the New York Charities Bureau of New York State and accepts charitable donations on behalf of this project. Your donation will be spent by the filmmaker(s) toward the production and completion of this media project. No services or goods are provided by Women Make Movies, the filmmaker(s) or anyone else associated with this project in exchange for your charitable donation.
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