Art@Bainbridge | Helène Aylon: Undercurrent

Saturday, September 14, 2024 - Sunday, February 2, 2025
Helène Aylon (1931 - 2020; born, Brooklyn, NY; died, New York, NY), I Will Wait for the Landing, 2014. Color photograph mounted on board; 45.7 × 76.2 cm. Collection of Helène Aylon Estate, Courtesy of Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York

Helène Aylon: Undercurrent brings together twenty works from Aylon’s fifty-year career to emphasize the strong undercurrent of receptivity and resilience that unifies her oeuvre. Using a wide range of media and techniques, including painting, performance, and film, Aylon (1931–2020) envisioned her practice as a form of exploration, emphasizing discovery rather than completion. She aligned this experimental approach with her feminism, often collaborating with other women on projects that drew attention to the female body, environmental fragility, and gender inequities in religious texts and practices. This exhibition encapsulates Aylon’s efforts to demonstrate that openness to the contingencies of the body, the earth, and spirituality can facilitate understanding, and even healing. 

Guest curated by Rachel Federman

Art@Bainbridge is made possible through the generous support of the Virginia and Bagley Wright, Class of 1946, Program Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art; the Kathleen C. Sherrerd Program Fund for American Art; Joshua R. Slocum, Class of 1998, and Sara Slocum; Rachelle Belfer Malkin, Class of 1986, and Anthony E. Malkin; Barbara and Gerald Essig; Gene Locks, Class of 1959, and Sueyun Locks; and Ivy Beth Lewis.

Additional support for this exhibition is provided by Princeton University’s Center for Culture, Society and Religion.