The article describes a visit to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York to see two concurrent exhibitions: Sam Contis's "Phases," featuring black-and-white motion portraits and a three-channel film of teenage girls running a five-kilometer race, and Diane Simpson's "Formal Wear," a sculptural exploration of femininity's exoskeletons using industrial materials. Literary accompaniments were commissioned for both shows—Kathryn Scanlan wrote a story for Contis's exhibition, and critic Audrey Wollen contributed an essay for Simpson's—blending visual art with prose to examine themes of adolescence, identity, and self-construction.
This matters because it highlights a growing trend of museums integrating literature directly into exhibition spaces, treating written works as equal partners to visual art. The collaboration between artists and writers deepens the interpretive experience, while the focus on teenage girls and feminist critique of domesticity reflects ongoing cultural conversations about gender, embodiment, and the politics of appearance. The article also positions these shows within a broader feminist practice that embraces failure, fantasy, and the messiness of self-making.