The Bunker Artspace

THE BUNKER Artspace

The Bunker Artspace opened in December 2017 as a private art space in West Palm Beach, Florida. Presenting rotating exhibitions and viewable storage of the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, The Bunker showcases a vast range of contemporary art, iconic pieces of furniture, and other curiosities. Built in the 1920s as a toy factory and utilized as a munitions armory during World War II, the Art Deco building now provides the ideal stage to show a considerable amount of work outside of DeWoody’s domestic spaces, and to a wider audience by invitation and through scheduled private tours.

Through DeWoody’s passion, vision, and continuing support of emerging artists and galleries, she has redefined the boundaries of collecting. By championing emerging, and at times, overlooked artists, especially in the early stages of their careers, she has amassed a truly unique collection. From a significant amount of work in the Collection, DeWoody and co-curators, Laura Dvorkin and Maynard Monrow have assembled a selection that includes works by leading contemporary artists, while always pushing beyond “the greatest hits” to deliver a more complete view of contemporary art today.

This season, the 2023/2024 Guest Curator, Peter Harkawik (founder of the New York and Los Angeles gallery Harkawik) will present an exhibition in the Bunker's largest space. Harkawik says, “Family Affair highlights the nuanced familial relationships between generations of artists, challenging traditional notions of lineage, mentorship and referentiality, showcasing instead delicate bilateral impacts among and between partners, parents, children and grandchildren, flames and friends.” The wide range of artists and groups include the Saar family, the Hurtado/Mullican family, Deborah Kass, Patricia Cronin, Jim Nutt, Gladys Nilsson, Hank Willis Thomas, Deborah Willis, and Peter & Sally Saul.

In addition, the 2023/2024 Installation includes a selection of works that rewrite the odalisque, a reclining pose historically attributed to the nude courtesan and male perspective. Contrarily, the exhibition features artists that offer a different viewpoint or alternative odalisque that tackles age and gender. The exhibition is on display at a time when one of the most controversial odalisques in history, Édouard Manet’s Olympia, is presented at The Met.

A four-room installation of artist-made chairs and two dimensional interiors will also be shown this year. Created over a 70-year period, the works reflect achievements in functionality and design, and at times, surrealism, humor, and activism. Artist and designers include Lina Bo Bardi, Cheryl Ekstrom, Pedro Friedeberg, LaLanne, Arthur Simms, Carl Hopgood, Kate Millett, Vito Acconci, Germane Barnes, Mike and Doug Starn, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Additional themed rooms include artist self-portraits, a shrine to citrus, and utility.

During the opening, Michele Pred will present Reproductive Freedom, an interactive performance that includes two eight-foot-tall inflatable abortion pills. She will be wearing a dress covered in abortion pills made out of resin and will include large-scale plastic toy “soldiers” of Rosie the Riveter. She will also display her popular and wearable Power of the Purse artworks and an American flag made with abortion pills crafted of resin.

Beth Rudin DeWoody, art collector and curator, resides between Los Angeles, New York City, and West Palm Beach. She is President of The Rudin Family Foundations and Executive Vice President of Rudin Management. Her Board affiliations include the Whitney Museum of American Art, Hammer Museum, The New School, The Glass House, Empowers Africa, New Yorkers for Children, and The New York City Police Foundation. She is an Honorary Trustee at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and on the Photography Steering Committee at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach.

DeWoody has curated numerous exhibitions, and the Collection has been the subject of exhibitions featured at the Rebuild Foundation, Chicago; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach; Parrish Museum, Southampton; and the Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, among other institutions.

The Beth Rudin DeWoody collection does not accept unsolicited artwork. Thank you for understanding.