HAVERFORD, PA.- Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery opened Raw Material: The Art and Life of Susan Kleckner, the first comprehensive retrospective of the pioneering feminist artist, filmmaker, photographer, and performance artist. Curated by William Kaizen, ​ and on view through April 5, 2026, the exhibition brings together nearly 100 works spanning photography, film, installation, collage, performance, and archival materials—many of which are being shown publicly for the first time. Extending beyond the gallery, Raw Material unfolds across Philadelphia through a citywide film and performance series—from Lightbox Film Center at the Bok Building to Public Trust—underscoring the public, durational, and site-responsive nature of Kleckner’s work.

Spanning more than four decades of creative experimentation and political engagement, Raw Material offers a long-overdue reappraisal of Kleckner’s multifaceted career and enduring influence on feminist, queer, and activist art practices in the United States and beyond. While Kleckner was a foundational figure within feminist art and film circles during her lifetime, institutional and structural barriers—including struggles with mental and physical illness—contributed to the marginalization of her legacy. This exhibition represents years of scholarly recovery and collaborative research, made possible through sustained archival work and the efforts of those who knew and championed Kleckner’s practice.



Raw Material takes its title from an unrealized photographic series and publication Kleckner developed late in life, documenting experiences of institutionalization and recovery. ​ Across film, photography, performance, and writing, she approached art not as a refined product but as an active site of inquiry, care, and survival—one in which vulnerability, endurance, and political urgency remained visible. The title honors this approach, foregrounding Kleckner’s belief that the unfiltered, the provisional, and the embodied are not preparatory to art, but its essential substance.

“Kleckner’s art was never about purity of form—it was about the raw, lived experience of being a woman, a patient, a teacher, a witness,” said curator William Kaizen. “This exhibition invites viewers to reckon with the intensity of her vision and the emotional and political stakes of her work.”

Long underrecognized despite her foundational role in feminist film, art, and performance, Kleckner’s legacy has come into sharper focus through an intensive scholarly process centered on the Susan Kleckner Archives at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The archives—shepherded to UMass through the longtime friendship and advocacy of artist and professor Susan Jahoda—became the catalyst for curator William Kaizen’s research. That work encompassed deep archival excavation and cataloging and the development of a graduate seminar Kaizen taught while serving as a visiting professor at UMass Amherst.



Organized thematically, the exhibition foregrounds Kleckner’s belief in art as both a personal and political tool. Highlights include:

• Self-portraits from Kleckner’s final years, created during periods of intensive psychoanalysis and palliative care, reflecting her evolving understanding of the body and identity;

• Photographs and mixed-media works representing queer life and sexuality;

• Documentation of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, the 19-year, female-led anti-nuclear protest and anarchist community in England; and

• Extensive materials related to Window Peace (1986), Kleckner’s year-long storefront performance at SoHoZat in New York, in which more than forty women artists sequentially occupied a 5-by-6.5-foot display window as a public act of endurance, visibility, and peace.

Extending beyond the gallery walls at Haverford, Raw Material is accompanied by a robust public program across Philadelphia that centers film and performance as foundational to Kleckner’s practice. Curated by William Kaizen and Jesse Pires of Lightbox Film Center, the series situates Kleckner’s work within women-led cinematic and political movements of the 1970s while reactivating her legacy through contemporary engagement.



Highlights include:

• A reimagining of Window Peace, organized by Kiran Jandu, featuring original participant Linda Montano alongside contemporary artists such at West Philadelphia’s Public Trust, bridging historical recovery and living practice, and affirming Kleckner’s enduring relevance today;

• Screenings at Lightbox Film Center of Kleckner’s landmark feminist films, including Three Lives (1971)—the first feature-length documentary produced by an all-women crew—and Birth Film (1973), one of the earliest feminist films to document childbirth; and

• A live, improvised performance ​ by Philadelphia folk-psych band Henbane to accompany Kleckner’s Desert Piece (Outtakes) (1980) — film sequences shot in Joshua Tree, California, featuring performance artists Tyaga and Curtis Ratliff and others moving through the landscape; and

• A screening at Haverford College of Another Look at the Miami Convention (1972), the first feature-length television documentary shot and edited by an all-women crew, chronicling Shirley Chisholm’s presidential campaign and the emergence of women on the national political stage.



A fully illustrated monographic catalog, scheduled for publication in Spring 2026, will further contextualize Kleckner’s life and work. Edited by Kaizen, the publication includes essays by Kaizen and art historian Siona Wilson, as well as a conversation between artists Linda Cummings and Susan Jahoda, offering both scholarly and deeply personal perspectives on Kleckner’s radical practice.

Raw Material forms part of Haverford College’s ongoing commitment to presenting underrecognized figures in American art and advancing research, preservation, and public access to marginalized artistic legacies. Major support for the exhibition has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.

An integral part of the John B. Hurford '60 Center for the Arts and Humanities, the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery (CFG) is the principal venue for the Haverford College Exhibitions Program, which aims to extend cultural literacy through the display and analysis of work across visual and material media.

Envisioning exhibition spaces as active workshops for the exploration of visual culture, the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery partners with faculty, students, and visiting curators to design exhibitions that connect curricular interests and scholarship with contemporary artistic practice. In so doing, we encourage intellectual inquiry and artistic innovation in the Haverford community and greater Philadelphia region.



Drawing on the vibrant arts community and world-class museums and galleries of nearby Philadelphia, the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery showcases some of the region’s most compelling new artwork; at the same time, the program strives to bring noteworthy artistic exemplars of both national and international perspectives to the area.

Lightbox Film Center is Philadelphia’s premier presenter of independent, international, experimental, and repertory cinema. Committed to both preserving historically significant films and showcasing contemporary works that have yet to reach wider audiences, Lightbox fosters a community built around a shared reverence for the moving image. Its programs inspire dialogue, encourage exploration, and challenge conventional perspectives on cinema.

Founded in the 1970s as The Neighborhood Film/Video Project at International House of Philadelphia, Lightbox has nearly fifty years of history supporting emerging filmmakers and presenting socially and culturally engaged work. Now an independent nonprofit, the organization continues to expand its scope—including film restoration—ensuring a dedicated space for innovative, overlooked, and boundary-pushing films that engage the public with the broader context of moving-image culture.

Public Trust is a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering learning, creativity, and collaboration across the spheres of health, education, and ecology. Inspired by the work of W. E. B. Du Bois, Public Trust approaches its programs with both rigorous analysis and deep empathy, seeking to amplify voices, confront injustice, and imagine new possibilities for freedom, equality, and collective well-being. The organization builds community through partnerships, public programming, and initiatives that integrate knowledge, care, and action.

Evolving from more than twenty years of experimentation and civic engagement as the Slought Foundation, Public Trust draws on a legacy of collaboration, research, and social innovation. Its name reflects both the legal doctrine of the public trust—which emphasizes collective stewardship of shared resources—and a commitment to the common good in a time of ecological, social, and political precarity. Through creative projects, institutional partnerships, and digital platforms, Public Trust continues to nurture hope, solidarity, and the belief that transformative change is possible when knowledge, imagination, and civic responsibility intersect.

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is a multidisciplinary grantmaker and hub for knowledge-sharing, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and dedicated to fostering a vibrant cultural community in Greater Philadelphia. The Center invests in ambitious, imaginative, and catalytic work that showcases the region’s cultural vitality and enhances public life, and engages in an exchange of ideas concerning artistic and interpretive practice with a broad network of cultural practitioners and leaders.