In 2024, The Judith Center launched its first major initiative, The Judith Center Poster Project, occurring over five years in partnership with numerous university art museums across the U.S. The project features new works made by 50 American artists, reflecting contemporary concerns about equality, and is accompanied by educational programs.

The first phase of the project, Freedom in the Automation Age, is now on view at The Judith Center (following its debut at MSU Broad Art Museum). The series consists of newly commissioned posters by Lynn Hershman Leeson, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Warren Neidich, abbi page, Martine Syms, and Linda Vallejo. The artists’ works speak to intersections of gender and how the commercialization/weaponization of new technology (such as AI) is resulting in an increasingly restricted space for individual freedoms, both in democratic processes and beyond.

In April, The Judith Center will partner with CalArts to host French conceptual artist Carole Douillard for a one-month residency. The collaboration will be based in the CalArts Reef Residency space, located adjacent to The Judith Center, a public-facing gallery where visitors will be able to observe the artist’s working process. With a practice rooted in the reinterpretation of historic performances and the reactivation of feminist archives, Douillard will use this period to conduct research and rehearsals toward a collaborative performance with CalArts students, to be realized on the CalArts campus in Valencia, California (performance date to be announced). During her time in Los Angeles, she will also be researching the history of performance art by women and queer artists in Southern California from the 1960s through the 1980s. Members of the public who are interested in visiting the space or connecting with the artist during this time are invited to contact us at info@thejudithcenter.org.

In May, The Judith Center will partner with the nonprofit organization Just Detention International (JDI) to present an exhibition featuring nearly one hundred works by individuals who have experienced trauma behind bars, including those who have been subjected to sexual abuse while incarcerated. The exhibition foregrounds personal testimony and creative expression, bringing visibility to voices that are too often excluded from public and cultural discourse. Founded in 1980, Just Detention International is a health and human rights organization dedicated to ending sexual abuse in all forms of detention. JDI is the only organization in the United States—and globally—focused exclusively on addressing sexual abuse behind bars. Its work includes holding government officials accountable for prisoner rape, challenging the cultural and institutional conditions that allow sexual violence to persist, and ensuring that survivors have access to the support and resources they need.

To mark its inaugural opening, The Judith Center invited the Guerrilla Girls to create a site-specific interactive installation. Visitors are welcome to stop by and contribute to Complaints Department by appointment.

On July 26th, The Judith Center hosted a special evening to celebrate the launch of its new space, with food, drinks, and interactive art installations by the Guerrilla Girls and Lauren Lee McCarthy, and performances courtesy Blue Whale (Lauren Ellis, Nicole McCabe, and Sophia Trevor) and Cody Perkins aka Algorythm.Code.

The event also featured a silent auction of books, focused on gender, curated and signed by Roy Athey, Andrea Bowers, Judith Butler, Riane Eisler, rafa esparza, Andrea Fraser, Lauren Halsey, Rashid Johnson, Warren Neidich, and Barbara T. Smith.

At Felix Art Fair, we presented our first curatorial project, Women in Print: Expanding the LA Canon, with The Center for the Study of Political Graphics. We displayed historical posters made by women artists in the LA area from the 1970s-90s, including Favianna Rodriguez, Sister Corita Kent, the Guerrilla Girls, Barbara Carrasco and many more.

We were honored to work with nine contemporary artists, who we commissioned to make new response posters that address the ongoing presence of sexism, including Sandrine Abessera, Eve Fowler, Mariah Garnett, Raul Guerrero, Muna Malik, Nicole Miller, Erika Rothenberg, Kang Seung Lee, and Linda Vallejo.