image: Janine Antoni, 2038 (2000). © Janine Antoni
Launching in March 2024 at Arnolfini, Hayward Gallery Touring’s major group exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood will plunge into the joys and heartaches, mess, myths and mishaps of motherhood through over 100 artworks, from the feminist avant-garde to the present day.
While the Madonna and Child is one of the great subjects of European art, we rarely see art about motherhood as a lived experience, in all its complexity. Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood will address this blind spot in art history, asserting the artist mother as an important – if rarely visible – cultural figure.
Featuring the work of more than sixty modern and contemporary artists, this exhibition will approach motherhood as a creative enterprise, albeit one at times tempered by ambivalence, exhaustion or grief. Acts of Creation will explore lived experience of motherhood, offering a complex account that engages with contemporary concerns about gender, caregiving and reproductive rights.
The exhibition will address diverse experiences of motherhood across three themes: Creation, which looks at conception, pregnancy, birth and nursing; Maintenance which explores motherhood and caregiving in the day-to-day; and Loss, which touches on miscarriage and involuntary childlessness, as well as reproductive rights. The heart of the exhibition is a series of revelatory self-portraits – a celebration of the artist as mother.
Featuring painting, photography, sculpture, sound and film, artists in the exhibition include: Felicity Allen; Janine Antoni; Cassie Arnold; Bobby Baker; Elina Brotherus; Liesel Burisch; Cathy Cade; Lea Cetera; Jai Chuhan; Eileen Cooper; Renee Cox; Dorothy Cross; Rineke Dijkstra; Natalie Djurberg and Hans Berg; Leni Dothan; Marlene Dumas; Catherine Elwes; Tracey Emin; Jessa Fairbrother; Feministo; Fenix; Maeve Gilmore; Anna Grevenitis; Camille Henrot; Susan Hiller; Ghislaine Howard; Elsa James; Chantal Joffe; Claudette Johnson; Mary Kelly; Liss LaFleur; Tala Madani; Sally Mann; MATERNAL FANTASIES; Mother Art; Wangechi Mutu; Ishbel Myerscough; Everlyn Nicodemus; Catherine Opie; Fani Parali; Celia Paul; Cathie Pilkington; Laure Prouvost; Paula Rego; Su Richardson; Sister Seven; Monica Sjöö; Annegret Soltau; Tabitha Soren; Heather Spears; Nancy Spero; Hannah Starkey; Emma Talbot; Mierle Laderman Ukeles; VALIE EXPORT; Christine Voge; Del LaGrace Volcano; Barbara Walker; Caroline Walker; Carrie Mae Weems; Nancy Willis; Hermione Wiltshire; Hermione Wiltshire and Clare Bottomley; Carmen Winant; Daphne Wright; Billie Zangewa.
Please note we would like visitors to be aware that the artworks in Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood address some important issues surrounding women’s health and wellbeing including: Nudity, childbirth, (in)fertility, miscarriage, abortion, loss, domestic abuse, adoption, sterilisation and obstetric violence.
Audio Playlist for Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood
Acts of Creation will be accompanied by a lively programme of public events and an illustrated book published by Thames and Hudson.
Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood Resources:
Please click on the images below to download a copy of the Gallery Guide and Eye Spy Trail to explore Acts of Creation. Copies are also available to use when visiting.
Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood is curated by Hettie Judah with Hayward Gallery Touring and will go onto:
Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), Birmingham: 22 June to 29 September 2024
Millennium Gallery, Sheffield: 24 October 2024 to 21 January 2025
Dundee Contemporary Arts: Spring 2025 (exact dates to be confirmed)
