Upcoming Nina Yankowitz exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg

Throughout a career spanning six decades, Nina Yankowitz (American, b. 1946) has created a multidisciplinary practice that defies singular definition. Her work pushes against traditional boundaries: her paintings have resisted not just frames, but seemingly gravity; her abstract compositions have gone beyond the canvas to embrace the aural. Most recently, Yankowitz has deepened her interest in technology and new media to create immersive environments that spotlight women-centered histories that have gone unknown for far too long.

Despite the stark individuality of Yankowitz’s practice, she has long understood the importance of collective action and was a founding member of the feminist Heresies Collective (1976–1993). Elements of social justice underpin Yankowitz’s work, as does humor and a fearless approach to medium. This exhibition serves as a course correction, ensuring that the work of Nina Yankowitz, a truly boundary-defying artist, is honored with a career retrospective within her lifetime.

Yankowitz uses the phrase In the Out/Out the In to describe her goals of making her art as accessible as possible—bringing the so-called “outside” “in.” However, it also suggests the sense of imbalance generated by the artist’s work. Her Cantilever series, for example, suggests paintings crashing through walls, causing disorientation that can be almost visceral. An audio work from 1974 titled Lips Knees Neck Elbows Chest Rear urges visitors to engage with their bodies. The exhibition will include early draped, shirred, and pleated paintings, as well as the Dilated Grain Readings series and her later “scanning” works, which function almost as musical scores. It will also include Yankowitz’s experimental ceramics, such as Hell’s Breath (1981), and a multimedia collaboration that is currently in progress.

Nina Yankowitz was born and raised in New Jersey and lives between New York City and Sag Harbor. Her works are in public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA; Virginia Museum of History & Culture, Richmond, VA; and the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA. Her archival materials are found in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Her 2022 solo exhibition at Eric Firestone Gallery garnered reviews in Artforum and Art in America, and in 2024 she was inducted into the New York Foundation for the Arts’ Hall of Fame.

Nina Yankowitz | In the Out/Out the In will be on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg from June 21 through September 21, 2025. The exhibition will then travel to The Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY, where it will be on view from October 5, 2025 – February 22, 2026.