Nancy Spero

The Contemporary Art Gallery will present eight scroll works by American artist Nancy Spero. Spero’s work is informed by the feminist movement of the 70s and investigates the prevalence of violence against women in contemporary and historical terms, drawing upon visual sources which include Egyptian hieroglyphics, advertisements, pictographs, classical painting, and pornography. The scroll format and the repeated combination of figuration and text suggest the uneasy relation of women to recorded history and her aim to “...find the speaking subject — woman as protagonist, woman as source.” Spero’s presentation of the figure in variations of scale formally integrates her concerns by intensifying the position of the viewer to the narrative, a parallel of women’s attempts to enter the prevailing social and symbolic order as voiced subjects.

Spero’s analysis of the persecution of women articulated in her printed “acts of rebellion” have been exhibited at galleries and museums throughout North America and Europe. A retrospective exhibition of work since 1950 was presented in 1987 and toured many locations in the US and Canada.

Spero’s work will also be presented in the Fear of Others: Art Against Racism group exhibition at various venues throughout the city.