Robbie McCauley in ‘Conjure Women.’ Image courtesy of Women Make Movies.
Summer Film Series for ’Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection’: ‘Conjure Women’ & ‘Sphinxes Without Secrets’
On the occasion of ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection,’ join us for a double feature of two rarely screened documentaries centered on women in the performing and visual arts: ‘Conjure Women’ (1995), directed by Demetria Royals, and ‘Sphinxes Without Secrets’ (1991), directed by Maria Beatty.
In ‘Conjure Women,’ filmmaker Demetria Royals profiles four African American women artists: playwright and performance artist Robbie McCauley, dancer and choreographer Anita Gonzalez, Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist Cassandra Wilson, and renowned artist Carrie Mae Weems. The film explores the artistry and philosophy that defines each of their creative practices.
‘Sphinxes Without Secrets’ documents several outstanding women working in performance art, whose feminist avant-garde work developed throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Performers, curators, and critics unravel the mysteries of performance art while reflecting on the obstacles women face in the art world. The film features talking-head segments and performance footage by artists including Diamanda Galás, Robbie McCauley, Holly Hughes, Rachel Rosenthal, Carolee Schneemann, Adrian Piper, Suzanne Lacy, and many more.
These films were selected by Camm Harrison, founder of Black Revivalist, a screening series project which showcases an array of underrated and overlooked gems within Black cinema, in collaboration with Ingrid Schaffner, Curatorial Senior Director at Hauser & Wirth.
Conjure Women (85 mins)
Brief Intermission (15 mins)
Sphinxes Without Secrets (58 mins)
Arrive early to join the Fresh Takes tour of ‘Destiny Is a Rose,’ led by Art Division’s next-generation creatives from 1 – 1.45 pm.
The program is free; however, reservations are recommended. Click here to register.
Installation view, ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection,’ Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles, 24 February –16 August 2026. Photo: Jeff McLane
About ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection’
Marking fifty years since Eileen Harris Norton’s first acquisition, 'Destiny Is a Rose’ presents more than 80 works that together reflect Harris Norton’s prescient vision and commitment to social justice and learning.
Titled after a painting by Kerry James Marshall, ‘Destiny Is a Rose’ includes work by Mark Bradford, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon Marshall, Lorraine O’Grady, Adrian Piper, Betye Saar, Lorna Simpson, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems and Jack Whitten, among others. In conjunction with ‘Destiny Is a Rose,’ Hauser & Wirth Publishers has produced a fully-illustrated exhibition catalogue, featuring text by Dr. Kellie Jones and curator Ingrid Schaffner, celebrating a collector who continues to be an agent of cultural change and growth.
About Ingrid Schaffner
Internationally admired as a curator, art critic, writer, and educator with nearly four decades of experience in the field of contemporary art, Schaffner is known for her generative and original scholarship focused on themes of archiving and collecting, photography, feminism, and alternate modernisms. From 2020 to 2023, she was the curator at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, prior to joining Hauser & Wirth as Curatorial Senior Director.
About Black Revivalist
Black Revivalist is an ongoing film screening series founded by film curator Camm Harrison, specializing in showcasing underseen and underrated Black cinema from across the diaspora. Presented at various art and cinema spaces throughout the Los Angeles area, the series highlights the rich diversity of Black filmmaking over the past two centuries, finding films' connective threads and connecting them to new and diverse audiences.
