MoMA opens ‘Taking Back Our Space’: Marianne Wex’s feminist art in dialogue with 7 contemporary artists

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York opened on September 20, 2026 the exhibition ‘Taking Back Our Space: Photographic Perspectives,’ which will remain open until May 2027 in the Paul J. Sachs Galleries, on the museum’s second floor. The exhibition places photography at the center as a medium for exploring the relationship between the body and public space, from an intersectional feminist perspective.

The exhibition’s starting point is the project of German artist Marianne Wex (1937–2020), ‘Let’s Take Back Our Space: ‘Female’ and ‘Male’ Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures’ (1977) — a visual study conducted between 1972 and 1977, during which Wex secretly photographed people on the streets of Hamburg to show how men and women were socialized to occupy space differently. Through categories such as ‘standing arms,’ ‘seated legs’ or ‘possessive holds,’ she documented how patriarchal structures shape body language. MoMA acquired the complete project in 2018.

Wex’s works are placed in dialogue with seven contemporary artists — Nona Faustine, Martine Gutierrez, K8 Hardy, Yuki Kihara, Joiri Minaya, Paulina Olowska and Wendy Red Star — who reinterpret the body’s relationship with public space from Black, queer and feminist perspectives of the 21st century, engaging with themes such as race, colonialism, gender identity and self-representation.

The exhibition is curated by Roxana Marcoci, former chief curator of photography at MoMA, and Caitlin Ryan. According to them, Wex’s historic project offers a powerful lens for reading, even today, the way the body — and especially the woman’s body — is negotiated in public space.

‘Taking Back Our Space: Photographic Perspectives’ remains open to the public until May 2027 in the Paul J. Sachs Galleries.

Source: MoMA (https://press.moma.org/exhibition/taking-back-our-space-photographic-perspectives/)