There’s plenty of porn in Betty Tompkins’ solo exhibition, which is newly open at Gavlak’s Los Angeles gallery. But that’s the least provocative part of it. In 2002, and then again 11 years later in 2013, the artist sent out an open call to her personal networks, and through art news hub Blouin ArtInfo, soliciting for words to describe women. The public responded with over 3,500 submissions in seven languages. So what were the most common words associated with women? 'Bitch', 'slut' and 'Mother'.
Over the next two years, Tompkins turned the results of her social experiment into 1,000 text-based paintings, using a selection of the words and phrases she received. The installation, 'WOMEN Words, Phrases and Stories', has traveled from New York City’s FLAG Art Foundation to Gavlak, hung in a carefully arranged salon-style that sprawls across the walls. The meticulous order creates a new narrative from the phrases, an incisive overview of the contemporary female experience and the perception of female identity in the west, from appreciation and objectification to misogyny and everyday sexism.
Tompkins presents the situation for women, in the here and now – but she also opens up questions about how art and culture shape that position. ‘The paintings layer text in various styles over imagery, including lace overlays, gauzy close-ups of the female body and a sampling of styles from the old-boy-painting network – de Kooning, Fontana, Guston, Morris Louis, Newman, Pollock and Richter,’ Tompkins writes of the installation work. ‘"WOMEN Words" was created to challenge the representation of female identity, the politics of pleasure and the role of sexuality in contemporary culture.’
'WOMEN Words' is a clarion call, far more radical and revealing than Tompkins’ better known earlier works also on display: her Cunt paintings and Fuck series, enlarged photorealistic depictions of sex in acrylic. Also on show are subtler statements on paper, including rare collage works, displayed alongside 'WOMEN Words' for the first time, highlighting the visible and unconscious structures that define gender today.
The meticulous order creates a new narrative from the phrases, an incisive overview of the contemporary female experience and the perception of female identity in the west
‘The paintings layer text in various styles over imagery, including lace overlays, gauzy close-ups of the female body and a sampling of styles from the old-boy-painting network – de Kooning, Fontana, Guston, Morris Louis, Newman, Pollock and Richter,’ Tompkins writes of the installation work
Tompkins’ better known earlier works are also on display. Her Cunt paintings and Fuck series comprise enlarged photorealistic depictions of sex in acrylic
There are also subtler statements on paper, including rare collage works, displayed alongside 'WOMEN Words' for the first time, highlighting the visible and unconscious structures that define gender today
INFORMATION
’WOMEN Words, Phrases and Stories’ is on view until 3 September. For more information, visit the Gavlak website
Photography: Jeff McLane. Courtesy of the artist and Gavlak Los Angeles
ADDRESS
Gavlak
1034 N Highland Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038
-
Highlights from the transporting Cruise 2026 showsThe Cruise 2026 season began yesterday with a Chanel show at Lake Como, heralding the start of a series of jet-setting, destination runway shows from fashion’s biggest houses
-
Behind the design of national pavilions in Venice: three studios to knowDesigning the British, Swiss and Mexican national pavilions at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 are three outstanding studios to know before you go
-
Premium patisserie Naya is Mayfair’s latest sweet spotHeritage meets opulence at Naya bakery in Mayfair, London. With interiors by India Hicks and Anna Goulandris, the patisserie looks good enough to eat
-
Ai Weiwei’s new public installation is coming soon to Four Freedoms State Park‘Camouflage’ by Ai Weiwei will launch the inaugural Art X Freedom project in September 2025, a new programme to investigate social justice and freedom
-
‘Humour is foundational’: artist Ella Kruglyanskaya on painting as a ‘highly questionable’ pursuitElla Kruglyanskaya’s exhibition, ‘Shadows’ at Thomas Dane Gallery, is the first in a series of three this year, with openings in Basel and New York to follow
-
Leonard Baby's paintings reflect on his fundamentalist upbringing, a decade after he left the churchThe American artist considers depression and the suppressed queerness of his childhood in a series of intensely personal paintings, on show at Half Gallery, New York
-
Unlike the gloriously grotesque imagery in his films, Yorgos Lanthimos’ photographs are quietly beautifulAn exhibition at Webber Gallery in Los Angeles presents Yorgos Lanthimos’ photography
-
Desert X 2025 review: a new American dream grows in the Coachella ValleyWill Jennings reports from the epic California art festival. Here are the highlights
-
Cowboys and Queens: Jane Hilton's celebration of culture on the fringesPhotographer Jane Hilton captures cowboy and drag queen culture for a new exhibition and book
-
New gallery Rajiv Menon Contemporary brings contemporary South Asian and diasporic art to Los Angeles'Exhibitionism', the inaugural showcase at Rajiv Menon Contemporary gallery in Hollywood, examines the boundaries of intimacy
-
Helmut Lang showcases his provocative sculptures in a modernist Los Angeles home‘Helmut Lang: What remains behind’ sees the artist and former fashion designer open a new show of works at MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House
