Galerie Lelong Presents NANCY SPERO at The Art Show

In this year's The Art Show in New York, Galerie Lelong will exhibit a solo presentation of Nancy Spero's Sheela-Na-Gig at Home-an installation incorporating printed collage, video, and lingerie on a clothesline. First created in 1996, Sheela-Na-Gig at Home displays Spero's dark humor and interests in the female experience and the grotesque.

Nancy Spero (1926-2009) is known for her groundbreaking work in which women are the primary source material and subject matter. Spero's lexicon was derived from an immersion in the history of images, notably from Egypt, classical antiquity, pre-history, and contemporary news media. One of the most startling images is Sheela-Na-Gig, a Celtic fertility figure and primal representation of female sexuality and creative power. Spero used Sheela-Na-Gig in a number of scroll paper works, but Sheela-Na-Gig at Home is the only installation by the artist with the image; it was also her first sculptural work.

The allusion to "women's work" is clear, as figures of Sheela-Na-Gig are repeated and interspersed with feminine lingerie and hung on a clothesline. Placed on the floor is a television monitor showing the artist hanging the drawings and clothes. She parodies a housewife in simply explaining the work: "I didn't have a dryer." Spero conceived Sheela-Na-Gig at Home as an "instructions" work that could be installed by anyone, similar to Fluxus and Conceptual works.

Sheela-Na-Gig at Home was recently featured in the retrospective exhibition Nancy Spero: Dissidancesfrom 2008 to 2009 at the Museo d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; and Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville. The Art Show is the first time the workwill be presented in New York since 1996. Organized by the Art Dealers Association of America, The Art Show will take place from March 3 to 7 at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan's Upper East Side.

The Art Show

March 3-7, 2010
Park Avenue Armory
Park Avenue at 67th Street
New York City

Wednesday - Saturday: noon to 8 PM
Sunday: noon to 6 PM

Photo: Sheela-Na-Gig at Home, 1996, Hand-printing and printed collage on paper, installation with video, underwear, and clothesline, Dimensions variable, Installation view at Museo d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2008