Nancy Spero's Feminist Art Retrospective at MoMA PS1

MoMA PS1 in New York is hosting 'Paper Mirror', the first major US retrospective of Nancy Spero since her death in 2009. Organized by Julie Ault, the exhibition features over 100 works spanning Spero's six-decade career. Spero, a feminist art pioneer and co-founder of the A.I.R. gallery, described her work as 'protest'. The show begins with her Black Paintings (1959-65), created while living in Paris, depicting dark, subconscious themes of sex, motherhood, and war. In the 1960s, she shifted to political activism in response to the Vietnam War, abandoning painting for paper and incorporating text. Her Artaud Paintings (1969-70) reflect the influence of Antonin Artaud. By 1972, she moved toward explicit feminist messages in series like 'Licit Exp' and 'Hours of the Night', using handmade stamps. The exhibition includes 32 works in the main room, such as 'Sheela and the Dildo Dancer' (1987), combining ancient mythology with her own imagery. A corridor displays horizontal paper works with mythological figures and phrases. Videos by Irene Sosa document Spero's later technique of printing directly onto walls. The final work, 'Maypole: Take No Prisoners' (2007), originally for the Venice Biennale in response to the Iraq War, hangs in the basement—a six-meter steel pole with chains and over 200 images of decapitated heads. The show runs until June 23, 2019.