The Hunter outlines America’s changing perceptions
Beyoncé has taken over the world, “Like A Girl” videos keep going viral and feminists are continuously reimagining and revitalizing their movement. One thing is certain: The topic of what it means to be a girl has never been more hot. The Hunter Museum of American Art is weighing in, too, but with a twist.
The Hunter’s newest exhibition, “Imagining American Girlhood,” opened July 24 and will be sticking around well into October. The exhibition focuses not only on how the concept of girlhood in America is constantly evolving, but how that evolution has been portrayed by artists through the ages.
Tracing girlhood from colonial times to the late 20th century, the exhibit features the three distinct ways Americans and artists alike have viewed girls: The early days of seeing children as miniature adults, the age of innocence and idealism and the era of girls as individuals as opposed to girls as tools of adult imagination.
This exhibit is an informed and engaging representation of how American culture and American art continues to reconceptualize what it means to be a young girl in today’s society. My, how far we’ve come.
“Imagining American Girlhood”
The Hunter Museum of Art
10 Bluff View
(423) 267-0968
huntermuseum.org