Floating Museum show examines power, gender and violence

The Floating Museum in Alameda opens a group exhibition Oct. 24 that looks at violence as an expression of power, from war and sexual assault to censorship and erasure. The show runs through Jan. 16, 2027, and features artists including Lynn Hershman Leeson, Lucy Puls and Ehren Tool.

Why it matters: - The exhibition links personal violence to systemic abuse, showing how war, sexual violence, censorship and exclusion shape lived experience. - The show frames art as a way to document harm, resist power and make trauma visible when institutions fail. - The Floating Museum is using a barge-based gallery in Alameda to spotlight artists and themes often left out of mainstream institutions.

What happened: - The Floating Museum will present "It’s Just a Shot Away: Power, Gender, and Violence" starting Oct. 24, 2026, with the exhibition on view through Jan. 16, 2027. - The group show brings together artists across generations and media to examine violence as an expression of power. - The museum is in Alameda, California, on the Oakland Estuary. - Marta Thoma Hall curated the exhibition and owns the Floating Museum.

The details: - The exhibition takes its title from the Rolling Stones’ 1969 song "Gimme Shelter," recorded during war, political upheaval and protest. - Merry Clayton’s refrain in the song links sexual violence, murder and war. - Lynn Hershman Leeson anchors the show with work focused on gender, identity, surveillance and systems of control. - Hershman Leeson’s photography and self-portraiture challenged double standards facing women in art and society. - Her film "!Women Art Revolution (!W.A.R.)" documented the feminist art movement and women artists’ fight for recognition and equality. - Lucy Puls uses appropriated imagery on silver platters to examine sexual exploitation, wealth, privilege and impunity. - Puls’s recent work addressing Jeffrey Epstein and the network around him uses the platter as both object and metaphor. - Chester Arnold, Al Farrow, Ehren Tool, Enrique Chagoya and Bradley McCallum address war, political violence, destruction and aftermath from different perspectives. - Arnold depicts Gaza as rubble and devastation set against its Mediterranean coastline. - Ehren Tool, a Gulf War veteran, makes handmade ceramic cups with military imagery and gives them away instead of selling them. - For this exhibition, Tool will create a "squad" of 13 cups to give to visitors at the end of the show. - Additional featured artists include Airco Caravan, Mildred Howard, Kristina Kotlier, Lyn Liu, Nadège Monchera-Baer, Wangechi Mutu, Alaïa Parhizi, Ginny Parsons, Michele Pred, Erin Riley, Marnika Shelton, M. Louise Stanley, Kara Walker and Cheyann Washington. - The Floating Museum is supported by the Hall Art and Technology Foundation. - The museum highlights underrepresented artists and aims to expand access to art and visibility for artists historically overlooked by traditional institutions. - More information is available at the museum's website.

Between the lines: - The curatorial framing places gender violence, war and institutional power in the same conversation, suggesting the show is as much about structures of control as individual acts of harm. - The inclusion of both feminist art history and contemporary responses to conflict gives the exhibition a broader political reading than a standard group show. - Tool’s plan to give away cups at the close of the exhibition turns the work into a participatory gesture rather than a market object.

What’s next: - Visitors can see the exhibition beginning Oct. 24, 2026. - The show will remain open until Jan. 16, 2027. - Tool’s 13 cups will be distributed to visitors at the exhibition’s conclusion.

The bottom line: - The Floating Museum is mounting a politically charged exhibition that uses contemporary art to confront violence, expose power and preserve acts of remembrance.