Nancy Spero at Galerie Lelong - New York - Brief Article

Nancy Spero's art has always had a fugitive quality. Her reliance on transparent papers, stencils, stamps, collage and tracings lightens the often horrific nature of her imagery by making it seem on the verge of dissolution. In this exhibition, the overall effect was more substantial, while the recurrence of her signature themes seemed to make a career summary of

essentially recent efforts.

Two large mural-like works on paper dominated the gallery. Azur (2002) consists of 39 sections set in three rows which wrapped around two corners of the gallery. It operates like a Chinese scroll, inviting the viewer to follow the almost fuguelike progression of repeated motifs across ever-shifting grounds permeated by a midnight blue. The other large work was The Hours of the Night II, a 2001 reworking of a 1974 composition in which 11 vertical panels of differing heights are meant to represent the nocturnal passage of time.

In both works, as in several smaller paintings included in the show, Spero employs her trademark vocabulary of images drawn from archeology, mass media, history and fantasy, which together suggest the many faces of woman. In ever-changing configurations appear a cast of characters that include the screaming head of the revolution-bound Marianne from the Arc de Triomphe, a snake-haired Medusa, various fertility cult figures, German Valkyries, Greek maenads, the arching body of the Egyptian sky goddess Nut, contemporary women in bondage regalia, Jane Fonda's cartoonishly erotic Barbarella and a smattering of real people, including the young Queen Elizabeth and the four martyrs of the German resistance group The White Rose.

These motifs multiply, merge with others, fade away and reappear across a shifting backdrop whose rich, saturated colors forma kind of ether free of the constraints of gravity and time. Sometimes figures are tiny and isolated in a vast expanse of empty space; sometimes they ferociously overwhelm their surroundings. Coming close, one realizes that the impression of flow perceived from a distance is countered by the meticulous care given to the composition of each individual section.

Together, these exhilarating works present a celebration of female freedom. However, Spero's women are neither nurturing nor politically correct. They range from the fearsome to the seductive, inhabitants of a cosmos where sex, power and violence seem interchangeable. Like the archetypes that inspired them, they embody a life force that allows nothing to stand in its way.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group