New art exhibition shows repro rights movement's evolution

Interesting artworks provoke thoughts on human rights and the country's divisions.

While much of the focus of this newsletter centers on legal battles and political acrimony, I’ve sought to highlight the spirit of resistance and protest through music, comedy, theatre, and other art.

So, I reached out to the curators of a new art exhibit, Wrongs & Rights, displayed at Brandeis University, showing the history of the battle for reproductive rights. Laura Dvorkin and Maynard Monrow gathered and selected the chosen pieces. More than 20 pieces show the movement’s evolution from the 1960s, but there’s a keen emphasis on what’s happened since the Dobbs decision. The exhibition had previously been shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2022.

“It wasn't just important in that moment,” Dvorkin said. “It continues to be. And even with this election, as well. So the timing of this was very important for the Brandeis exhibition.”

Both primarily work with the Beth Rudin DeWoody collection, which was gathered by a collector based in New York City and West Palm Beach. Both of them have curated other exhibitions as well.

Monrow said that they selected a variety of pieces from artists working in an array of fields. Rachel Lachowicz, an esteemed Los Angeles-based artist, took coat hangers, dipped them in lipstick, and bent them into different shapes. For those who are unfamiliar, coat hangers have long been part of protests and posters in the reproductive rights movement because some women used them to self-induce abortions before Roe v. Wade. They often then had to go to the hospital for perforated uteruses.

“That was extremely powerful,” Monrow said.

Lisa Ann Auerbach, an artist known for knitting interesting designs with a political focus, contributed a work that shows a map of America unraveling. Given what’s happened recently with pro-choice and antiabortion states at odds, it seems fitting for the times.

Monrow said that one of the points they wanted to make as curators was that human rights are something that progresses.

“Rights are something that are bestowed,” Monrow said. “Rights are not something that is subtracted.”