Carmen Winant: The last safe abortion

In The last safe abortion, artist Carmen Winant considers the labor of women’s health clinics and abortion providers in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, North Dakota, and Ohio. Drawing upon thousands of historical photographs from archives across the Midwest, as well as photographs made by Winant since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the artist studies what physicians and staff refer to as “the work of the work”: answering phones, holding training sessions, scheduling appointments, and handling logistics. In assemblages made with print photography and ordinary office supplies, the everyday nature of Winant’s materials—as well as the activities they embody—contrasts with their vast individual, social, and political impact, creating a visual language that recognizes and honors abortion work.

The exhibition consists of a variety of photographs presented in three different ways: in archival cases, in reference to a school bulletin board, and as a wall-spanning grid of over 2,500 four-by-six images. The photographs themselves are surprisingly regular: women answer the phone, sterilize medical equipment, throw staff birthday parties, offer workshops, and schedule appointments. In centering the tender, quotidian, and routine acts that inform this healthcare work, Winant works to counter the ways anti-choice activists have weaponised photography by proposing a visuality that attends to abortion care.

The last safe abortion was originated by the Minneapolis Institute of Art and curated by Casey Riley, Chair, Global Contemporary Art and Curator of Photography & New Media.

About the Artist

Carmen Winant is an artist and the Roy Lichtenstein Chair of Studio Art at The Ohio State University. Her work utilizes installation and collage strategies to examine feminist modes of survival and revolt. Winant's recent projects have been shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, MIA, Museum of Modern Art, The Print Center Philadelphia, Sculpture Center, Wexner Center of the Arts, the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, and as part of the CONTACT Photography Festival, which mounted twenty-six of her billboards across Canada. Winant's recent artist’s books include My Birth (2018), Notes on Fundamental Joy (2019), Instructional Photography: Learning How To Live Now (2021); Arrangements (2022), and A Brand New End: Survival and Its Pictures (2022). Winant is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in photography, a 2020 FCA Artist Honoree and a 2021 American Academy of Arts and Letters award recipient. She is a mother to her two sons, Carlo and Rafa, shared with her partner, Luke Stettner.

Follow @carmen.winant

Carmen Winant: The last safe abortion Advisory Committee

Sophie Clark, Clark Creative Agency

Andi Curry Grubb, Planned Parenthood North Central States

Senator Jen Day

Bekah Jerde

Catherine Medici-Thiemann, PhD, historian

Jen Pavkov, Creative Director, Women’s Fund of Omaha

Ashlei Spivey-Arthur, Executive Director, I Be Black Girl

In the Press

Aperture, Carmen Winant’s Powerful Homage to Abortion Care Workers

Hyperallergic, First Impressions From the 2024 Whitney Biennial

The New York Times, Whitney Biennial Names Its ‘Dissonant Chorus’ of Artists to Probe Turbulent Times

Vanity Fair, Artist Carmen Winant on Building a New Visual Language Around Abortion