The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York will present "Jessica Lichtenstein: Rewilding," the artist's first solo museum exhibition, from May 30, 2026, to April 18, 2027. The immersive installation transforms the third-floor gallery into a lush, overgrown terrain featuring thousands of digitally rendered female nudes that form forests, ruins, and flowering canopies. The exhibition is divided into four sections—Secret Garden, After the Fall, Leave Your Thoughts Here, and Shadow Play—and includes site-specific works like the 2026 piece "Secret Garden" and a 70-foot-long modular sculpture titled "Leave Your Thoughts Here" (2025).
The exhibition matters because it reimagines the female nude in Western art history, borrowing its title from the conservation ecology concept of rewilding to serve as a metaphor for liberty and release. By removing male figures and patriarchal framing, Lichtenstein's work critiques historical erotic conventions and positions the female body as an autonomous, collective force. The show, curated under the direction of Elissa Auther, MAD's Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs, invites viewers to reconsider power dynamics in representation and spectatorship.