The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) will host the first solo museum exhibition for artist Jessica Lichtenstein, titled “Jessica Lichtenstein: Rewilding,” from May 30, 2026, through April 18, 2027.

The exhibition transforms the museum’s third-floor gallery into an immersive landscape where thousands of digitally rendered female nudes coalesce into forests and ruins. Lichtenstein, who works in New York and Wyoming, uses the ecological concept of “rewilding”—the restoration of natural processes by withdrawing human intervention—as a metaphor for feminist autonomy and the reclamation of the female body from historical erotic conventions.

“Jessica Lichtenstein engages one of the most enduring subjects in Western art history and turns it inside out,” said Elissa Auther, MAD’s deputy director of curatorial affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon chief curator. “In Rewilding, the female body no longer serves as a passive motif. It becomes structure, landscape, and force.”

The installation is organized into four distinct sections:

• Secret Garden (2026): A site-specific work reimagining 18th- and 19th-century European pleasure gardens, removing the traditional “male gaze” to present the female nude without erotic obligation.
• After the Fall (2024): An architectural ruin featuring Gothic windows that look out onto landscapes overtaken by vegetation.
• Leave Your Thoughts Here (2025): A 70-foot-long modular sculpture that serves as a bench. It features lockets engraved with poetry and social media posts regarding beauty standards and desire.
• Shadow Play (2025): A video animation inspired by Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow self, featuring a whispered soundtrack of repressed thoughts.

The exhibition’s framework is informed by the poetry of science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin, specifically a provocation from her 1987 poem The Crown of Laurel: “What’s a nymph like me to do with something that belongs to men?”

Lichtenstein’s practice often incorporates materials such as gold, brass, and aluminum leaf alongside UV printing. Her “tree nymphs” are tiny, unfettered figures that inhabit environments free of patriarchal structures or male figures.

The Museum of Arts and Design is supported by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts. A fully illustrated companion book published by Hirmer Publishers will be released later this year to coincide with the exhibition.

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Lily Vakili is set to release her intimate six-song Live Wire EP May 8 (pre-save here).  Recorded with her collaborator, the Grammy-Award winning, Emmy-nominated producer/engineer Reed Turchi, Live Wire an old-school, live in-studio, audio and video recording of songs named for what fans and critics alike say is a perfect description of her charismatic performance style.  She will be playing a special EP release show in NYC on May 6 at Francis Kite Club – get tickets here and in Philadelphia May 20 at Nikki Lopez – get tickets here.

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