The Serpentine Gallery provides free talks on Saturday’s afternoons about their current artists on display, their work and legacy. On the 2nd of April Tamara Garb professor, curator and writer hosted a talk about themes connected to Nancy Spero art work. In over an hour she led the audience around the rooms filled with aggressive, explosive and deeply feminine pieces. After a short introduction to Spero’s life and practice she focused on her anti-Vietnam series. Here are the first examples of Spero’s recycled mythologies, symbolic figures and her unique raw, highly expressive but blunt language she will develop throughout her life. The next expansion in the artist life came through focus on language. Treated as a masculine she again recycled the means of it in her lino prints using alphabet, word and text as decorative elements and a substance of her work. The communicative side of language was eradicated from her art as was oil painting for its association with patriarchal world. Tamara Garb made it clear in her passionate presentation that Spero’s bold stand-up made a voice of female energy long forgotten and neglected to be a part of culture dialogue like never before.
Unfortunately the talk took place inside the gallery rooms therefore the documenting photography was forbidden. Here are just a few examples of Nancy Spero's work on the display.
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| Nancy Spero Maypole Take No Prisoners II, 2008 Installation view, Serpentine Gallery, London (3 March – 2 May 2011) © 2011 Jerry Hardman-Jones |
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| Nancy Spero Female Bomb 1966 Gouache and ink on paper 86.4 x 68.6 cm Collection of Barbara Lee, Cambridge, MA, USA |
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| Nancy Spero La Folie II, detail 2002 Ink, handprinting and collage on paper 184.2 x 47 cm Courtesy of Estate of Nancy Spero and Galerie Lelong |
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