The Serpentine Gallery presents an exhibition of the celebrated American artist Nancy Spero, the first major presentation following her death in autumn 2009.
Artist and activist Nancy Spero (1926–2009) was a leading pioneer of feminist art. During her 50-year career, she created a vibrant visual language constructed from the histories and mythologies of past and present cultures.
Trained in the figurative tradition, Spero was greatly influenced not only by the enduring dialogue with her husband Leon Golub, but also by artists including Jean Dubuffet and by the objects and artefacts she discovered in ethnographic museums. Spero rejected the dominant post-war movements of formalist Abstraction and Pop Art in the 1950s, developing a more ephemeral way of working that used paper and collage, gouache and printmaking – a process she described as allowing for ‘all manner of processions, conflicts, interruptions and disruptions’.
Spero created an identity through the acts of borrowing and disguise. In early work, texts as well as images were enlisted from a wide range of sources to express alienation, disempowerment and physical pain. Directly quoting
the writing of poet and playwright Antonin Artaud, Spero voiced her anger at being exiled as a female artist to the peripheries of the art world. Spero’s often radical work made strong statements against war, male dominance and abuses of power, presenting compelling arguments for tolerance and a non-hierarchical society. Yet her work was never simplistically utopian. ‘Utopia, like heaven,’ she once remarked, ‘is kind of boring.’
Over her lifetime, Spero’s practice grew increasingly collaborative, reflecting both her involvement in the politics of the Women’s Movement as well as the progressive physical difficulties she faced as a sufferer of chronic arthritis. During her life she remained politically active and was a founding member of the first women’s cooperative gallery, A.I.R. (Artists in Residence), in New York.
In her late work, Spero drew upon a broad range of visual sources – from Etruscan frescos to fashion magazines – to create a figurative lexicon representing women from pre-history to the present. Her work, she stated, ‘speculates on a sense of possibility and comments upon immediate events, political, sexual and otherwise’. Richly layered and vibrantly cinematic, epic works such as Azur, 2003, are celebratory tours de force reflecting Spero’s political engagement and dynamic imagination.
Nancy Spero has been initiated by the Centre Pompidou, Paris, (presented from 13 October 2010 to 10 January 2011), and adapted for the Serpentine Gallery.
Press coverage
Nancy Spero: Shocks to the system, The Independent, Wednesday 23 February 2011
Nancy Spero: No pity, The Guardian, Saturday 26 February 2011
From the Loft to Ashcan, Wall Street Journal, Thursday 3 March 2011
Nancy Spero is fighting for feminism, London Evening Standard, Thursday 3 March 2011
Saturday Review, BBC Radio 4, Saturday 5 March 2011
Nancy Spero – review, The Guardian, Sunday 6 March 2011
Nancy Spero provides heartfelt protest in painting, collage and sculpture at Serpentine Gallery, Culture 24, Monday 7 March 2011
Nancy Spero, Time Out, Friday 11 March 2011
Nancy Spero & Marcus Coates, Serpentine Gallery, The Arts Desk, Monday 14 March 2011
Nancy Spero’s Cri de Coeur at the Serpentine Gallery, Collective Review, Monday 14 March 2011
Nancy Spero @ the Serpentine Gallery, Aesthetica, Monday 21 March 2011
Catalogue
![nancy_spero_book_175[2].jpg](http://www.serpentinegallery.org/nancy_spero_book_175%5B2%5D.jpg)
Dedicated to American artist Nancy Spero, this extensive monograph features 120 full-colour illustrations of the artist’s most noted works, including Codex Artaud (1971–1972), as well as texts by Brooks Adams and Elisabeth Lebovici.
Purchase from Koenig Books at the Serpentine Gallery, open daily 10am – 6pm.
Talks
Katy Deepwell, Saturday 5 March
Claire Pajaczkowska, Saturday 12 March
Sophie O'Brien, Saturday 26 March
Tamar Garb, Saturday 2 April
Rachel Taylor, Saturday 9 April
Nancy Spero: A Conference, Friday 15 April
Coline Milliard, Saturday 16 April
Joanna S. Walker, Saturday 30 April
Nancy Spero
Artaud Painting: Then There Will Be… 1969
Gouache, encre, peinture et collage suur papier
63.5 x 53.3 cm
Courtesy of Estate of Nancy Spero and Galerie Lelong
![GL%207872%20-%20Female%20Bomb%20press%20page[1]-365.jpg](http://www.serpentinegallery.org/GL%25207872%2520-%2520Female%2520Bomb%2520press%2520page%5B1%5D-365.jpg)
Nancy Spero
Female Bomb 1966
Gouache and ink on paper
86.4 x 68.6 cm
Collection of Barbara Lee, Cambridge, MA, USA
Nancy Spero
Artaud Painting: This Crucible of Fire..., 1969
Gouache, ink and collage on paper
63.50 x 50.20 cm
Courtesy of Galerie de France, Paris
Nancy Spero
La Folie II, detail 2002
Ink, handprinting and collage on paper
184.2 x 47 cm
Courtesy of Estate of Nancy Spero and Galerie Lelong
Nancy Spero
Maypole Take No Prisoners II, 2008
Installation view, Serpentine Gallery, London
(3 March – 2 May 2011)
© 2011 Jerry Hardman-Jones
Azur, detail 2002
Collage with paint and hand printing on paper
39 panels, 64.5 x 8567.4 cm overall
Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne / Centre de Création Industrielle, Paris
Loan of Harriet and Ulrich Meyer through the Centre Pompidou Foundation, 2007
Nancy Spero in her Studio, New York 1974
Photograph: Joyce Ravid
