Nancy Spero
dal 12/10/2010 al 9/1/2011
Segnalato da
12/10/2010
Nancy Spero
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Nancy Spero's retrospective chronologically displays the work of an engaged artist. The exhibition gathers 60 drawings in homage to the American artist who died last year at the age of 83. Spero created a woman who is both a protagonist and a driving force of history, along the lines of the feminine model she defended. Spero's art, punctuated with cries of anger and radical stands, takes a decidedly figurative form, on the border between drawing and painting. Curated by Jonas Storsve. On show also the winners of the Prix Fondation d'entreprise Ricard: Ida Tursic and Wilfried Mille.
Curator: Jonas Storsve
The Centre Pompidou will hold the first retrospective dedicated to the work of Nancy Spero
in France. Presented from 13 October 2010 to 10 January 2011, it gathers sixty drawings in
homage to the American artist who died last year at the age of 83.
The exhibition, which will be shown in both the Gallery of Graphic Art and the Museum
Gallery, chronologically displays the work of an engaged artist. Nancy Spero created a woman
who is both a protagonist and a driving force of history, along the lines of the feminine model
she defended.
In 1966, she definitively abandoned painting on canvas, a medium she considered too
“masculine,” and renewed her practice of graphic art utilizing simple procedures and
materials: she photocopied, enlarged and modified her images, which she reworked and
redrew with an ink pen and then cut out. The figures thus obtained are often incorporated into
long strips of vertical or horizontal paper glued end-to -end like Egyptian papyrus or Chinese
scrolls. Imbued with violence, yet not bereft of humor, Nancy Spero’s art, punctuated with
cries of anger and radical stands, takes a decidedly figurative form, on the border between
drawing and painting.
Trained at the Art Institute of Chicago, a bastion of figurative painting, the artist studied at the École
des Beaux-Arts de Paris from 1949 to 1950. After marrying painter Leon Golub in1951 – they would
have three children – she came back with her family to live in the French capital from 1959 to 1964.
Upon returning to the United States, Nancy Spero took up the cause of ending the war in Vietnam,
translating all the horror and revulsion she felt about this conflict in The War Paintings (1966-1970).
Identifying with Antonin Artaud, she drew inspiration from his texts in her Artaud Paintings (1969-1970)
and more specifically in her Codex Artaud (1971-1972). It was through his influence she would invent her
self as a woman artist.
From the 1970s on, Nancy Spero placed woman at the center of her work, representing Man in the
broadest sense in an exclusively feminine form. During this period her work took a radically feminist turn.
She forged an image of woman who transgresses every limit of period and culture, free, strong and
timeless.
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Prix Fondation d'entreprise Ricard
From 2000, every years, the Centre Pompidou awards with the Prix Fondation d'entreprise Ricard the best french emerging artist. The works, donated by Fondation d'entreprise Ricard to Musee national d'art moderne, will enrich their collection.
This year the jury awards IDA TURSIC & WILFRIED MILLE.
Image: portrait of Nancy Spero
Director of the comunication
Francoise Pams
telephone +33 (0)1 44781287 email francoise.pams@centrepompidou.fr
Press officer: Sébastien Gravier telephone +33 (0)1 44784856
Gallery of graphic arts and gallery of the
museum, level 4
Centre Pompidou
Place Georges Pompidou 01, Paris
Hours: 11am to 9pm, (last admissions 8pm).
Tickets to museum & Exhibitions
Adult €12 or €10 depending on the period / concessions €9 or €8 depending on the period