Four hundred works by artists dedicated to the subject of maternity, or better, as the curator Massimiliano Gioni writes in the introduction to the catalogue, “the attempt of many women in the twentieth century to emancipate themselves from motherhood as something inevitable lived almost as a biological condemnation”. Through paintings, sculptures, installations, even including a collection of 280 empty and used strollers, linked together by fire hoses (Amazing Grace, 1993 Nari Ward), the exhibition tells, with a chorus of voices of many different tones, the desire many women have to not be just mothers. To many of the artists in the exhibition, motherhood is seen as a problem to escape from, a responsibility refused, in order to be able to concentrate on being an independent woman.
Among the works is also a disturbing photographic portrait of Marcel Duchamp dressed as a woman, introducing the theme of sexual identity and freedom from genres (transgender). As underlined by Gioni, “The Great Mother is an exhibition that recounts not only the story of the woman who gives birth to her child, but also of the woman who gives birth to herself in a new life.”
WHERE: Royal Palace, Piazza Duomo 12, Milan
WHEN: 26 August- 15 November, 2015