Nancy Buchanan:

A Retrospective

June 22 - September 20, 2025

THE EXHIBITION

For over five decades, Nancy Buchanan has been a vital part of the LA art community, and The Brick will present the first comprehensive survey of this remarkable artist’s expansive body of work. Best known for performance and video, Buchanan has worked prolifically in a number of media including drawing, painting, photography, installation, and collage. Buchanan belongs to a generation of women artists for whom feminism, as it relates to issues of women’s equality, gave way to feminism as a position from which to challenge authority in general.  Audiences will trace her performance, video, and installation work through the 1970s to today, reflecting the artist’s deep engagement with feminism, environmentalism, national identity, housing inequities, and autobiography.

PROGRAMS AND PERFORMANCES

A robust series of accompanying programming will offer restagings of several of Buchanan’s performances, spotlight conversations with the artist, curator-led walk-throughs, special video screenings of the artist’s long form media works, and a panel conversation with Buchanan’s collaborators and other special guests.

THE PUBLICATION

Following this exhibition, The Brick will produce a fully illustrated catalogue of Buchanan’s work, with scholarly essays and contributions by both Laura Owens and Catherine Taft among others. Serving as the artist’s first comprehensive monograph, this publication will feature first-person accounts by Buchanan and her numerous friends and collaborators.

This exhibition is curated by Laura Owens and Catherine Taft, with Hannah Burstein.

Generous support for this exhibition is provided by The Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, Karen Hillenburg, Angeles Art Fund, and the Pasadena Art Alliance. Additional support provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Teiger Foundation.

Special thanks to Jane Christensen, Charlie James, and The Brick staff and Board.

Page from Criss Cross Double Cross, Issue 1, 1976. Nancy Buchanan, WOLFWOMAN. Image courtesy of artist.