Tala Madani's 'Shit Moms' Exhibition at David Kordansky Gallery Explores Grotesque Motherhood

Tala Madani presented 'Shit Moms,' her second exhibition at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles, from September 7 to October 19, 2019. The show featured mostly oil paintings on linen and a few animated shorts, depicting diapered putti alongside maternal figures made of sludgy refuse. These works, including 'Shit Mom (Quads),' 'Shit Mom (Disco Babies),' and 'Shit Mom (Dream Riders)' from 2019, portray infants engaged with excrement while supervised by grotesque caregivers, evoking themes of maternal fear and inadequacy. Madani's art draws parallels to earlier pieces that focused on exaggerated male anatomy, now targeting gender-specific anxieties about bad motherhood. Large diptychs like 'Corner Projection (Panic)' and 'Corner Projection (Time)' reference cinema, with projectors showing blurred childlike figures, reminiscent of historical audience reactions to early films. The exhibition's visceral impact is compared to scenes from John Waters' films and the 1996 movie 'Trainspotting,' highlighting a tension between sincere commentary and mockery of maternal hangups. This show follows Madani's 2018 exhibition at 303 Gallery in New York and aligns with a broader cultural interest in insecure motherhood, as noted in The New York Times. The review, published in the December 2019 issue of ArtReview, analyzes the works' manipulation of empathy and disgust through grotesque imagery.