Reeva Potoff

Reeva Potoff, Bristol Bluffs, Cardboard and architectural tracing paper!2' x 8' x 32', 1977–78, Museum of Modern Art.

Reeva Potoff (born 1941) is an American visual artist based in New York City. Critics observe that her work takes a feminist approach that explores the observable world in order to emphasize themes such as impermanence, transformation and alternate modes of existence. From the 1970s to the mid-1990s, Potoff created monumental sculptural installations made from found and ephemeral materials, which investigated natural forms like cliffs, rock outcroppings or topographic terrain. Beginning in the late 1990s, she shifted toward collage-like, photo-based wall pieces, prints and scrolls whose imagery includes organic forms ranging from anthropomorphic to microbial, among other elements. Brooklyn Museum, and Indianapolis Museum of Art. Her work has appeared in group shows at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Maryland Institute College of Art, and Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, among others. Potoff has been awarded the Rome Prize, the New York Foundation for the Arts Murray Reich Distinguished Artist Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell and Yaddo, among other recognition.

Life and career Potoff was born in 1941 and grew up in Waterbury, Connecticut. After graduating, Potoff became involved in the feminist art movement and was later a member of the anonymous activist group, the Guerrilla Girls.

Potoff was featured in the MoMA exhibition "Projects: Reeva Potoff" (1978) as part of the Elaine Dannheisser Projects Series, Indianapolis Museum of Art (1992),

Potoff taught art from 1971 to 2023, including terms at Bennington College, Princeton University, Columbia University (1981–99) and Pratt Institute (1987–89, 1999–2023).

Sculptural installations, 1969–96 Potoff's work throughout the 1970s centered on cliff-inspired sculptures and large-scale reliefs made from discarded cardboard and paper found in the streets of SoHo. Artforum critic Leo Rubinfien related the latter piece to disparate work—the metal reliefs of Frank Stella, the patchworks of Lucas Samaras and postminimalism—describing it as a "sort of Deco abstraction" that addressed nature with a critical sense of both celebration and irony. Tower of Babel (1989) was a 40-foot-long, sling-like net pasted with dictionary pages and dressmaking patterns that draped down from the railing of the Newhouse Center's second floor.