DALLAS, TX.- The Dallas Museum of Art presents Difference?, an exhibition that explores work produced by contemporary artists over the past fifty years and includes approximately seventy works of art drawn exclusively from the Museum’s holdings and private collections in Dallas. On view October 19, 2012, through March 17, 2013, the works in all media created by artists of all ages and nationalities that comprise this exhibition are defined by a single commonality: the gender of their maker.

“Difference? provides visitors with an opportunity to experience our internationally recognized contemporary art collection while posing a question on the significance, or lack of significance, gender plays in art,” said Maxwell L. Anderson, The Eugene McDermott Director of the DMA.

The term difference has many meanings, both simple and complex. In its simplest form, it describes a state of things being different, dissimilar, or somehow unequal. The French expression vive la différence, which translates literally as “long live the difference,” has always referred to celebrating the difference between the sexes. In the 1970s, feminist scholars (particularly literary theorists) in both France and the United States focused on the word as a celebration of women’s difference central to a better understanding of how stereotypes played a negative role in the debate around gender and racial liberation.

“The many exhibitions we present throughout the Museum each year are often organized around some guiding principle. A singular theme, set of associations, overarching idea, or common history brings those works together,” stated Jeffrey Grove, The Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the DMA. “By drawing attention to the fact that there is only one thing these artists have in common, we ask the viewer to consider not only ‘What is the difference?’ but also ‘Does it matter?’.”

The exhibition highlights well-known works in the collection, such as Lee Krasner’s 1968 Pollination and Dorothea Tanning’s 1979 Pincushion to Serve as Fetish, alongside recent acquisitions that have previously never been on view. Two works that entered the collection earlier this year by Japanese artist Tsuruko Yamazaki, both titled Work, will be on view for the first time, as will Leslie Hewitt’s Untitled (Arc) and Untitled (Incandescent), and recent photographs by Marlo Pascual and Sara Vanderbeek.

Difference? is organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and curated by Jeffrey Grove.