This exhibition examines the historical casting of women as “witches”—as dangerous, deviant, unruly—and reclaims those figures as sites of power. It includes work made since the 1970s by women-identifying artists from three generations, who hail from across the globe and work in diverse practices and cosmologies. Featuring work by artists who challenge dominant systems of patriarchy and colonialism, the exhibition repositions the witch not as a caricature or villain, but as a much more complex figure. Witches are presented as guardians of suppressed forms of knowledge who channel ancestral wisdom and embody practices long dismissed or feared. In this context, the witch becomes a figure of feminist and political agency who traverses the past, present, and future—one who conjures alternative, decolonial futures through acts of resistance, imagination, and care. 

Bad Witches situates contemporary resurgences of the occult, alternative spiritualities, and magical practices within broader cultural and political transformations. Rather than framing this return as a passing trend, the exhibition positions it as a response to systemic crises and widespread instability. In such moments, spirituality reemerges as both a critical language and a political tool through which power is challenged, suppressed histories are reckoned with, and alternative futures are imagined and enacted.   

Artists:  

Belkis Ayón, Selva Aparicio, Tirtzah Bassel, Chelsea Culprit, Mary Beth Edelson, Olia Fedorova, Dianna Frid, Chiara Fumai, vanessa german, Hilma’s Ghost, Giuvlipen Collective, Johanna Hedva, Sanja Iveković, Le Hien Minh, *Isabelle Frances McGuire, Anna Maria Maiolino, Joanna Malinowska, Anna Mazzei, Teresa Margolles, *Claire Pentecost, Marta María Pérez Bravo, Naomi Rincón-Gallardo, Betye Saar, Maria Sosa, Renée Stout, Erika Verzutti, Kandis Williams, Bev Grant / W.I.T.C.H.  

*Including two new commissions by Isabelle Frances McGuire and Claire Pentecost. 

^{Bad Witches: The Spiritual as Empowerment is organized by Ionit Behar, PhD, Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and Magdalena Moskalewicz, PhD, Chief Curator and Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs, Sheldon Museum of Art.}  

^{The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue under the same title, edited by the curators and designed by Omnivore.} 

^{Major support for the exhibition is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Karen and Robert Duncan, and Roseann and Phil Perry.}

^{Annual support is provided by the Nebraska Arts Council, Nebraska Cultural Endowment, and Sheldon Art Association members.}