
Janine Antoni, 2038 (2000). © Janine Antoni.
While the Madonna and Child is one of the great subjects of European art, we rarely see art
about motherhood as a lived experience, in all its complexity. Acts of Creation: On Art and
Motherhood addresses this blind spot in art history, asserting the artist mother as an
important – if rarely visible – cultural figure.
Featuring the work of more than sixty modern and contemporary artists, this exhibition
approaches motherhood as a creative enterprise, albeit one at times tempered by
ambivalence, exhaustion or grief. Acts of Creation explores the lived experience of
motherhood, offering a complex account that engages with contemporary concerns about
gender, caregiving and reproductive rights.
The exhibition addresses diverse experiences of motherhood across three themes: Creation,
which looks at conception, pregnancy, birth and nursing; Maintenance, which explores
motherhood and caregiving in the day-to-day; and Loss, which touches on miscarriage and
involuntary childlessness, as well as reproductive rights. The heart of the exhibition is a
series of revelatory self-portraits – a celebration of the artist as mother.
To find out more please go to the direct link.