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© Anna Grevenitis

Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood

Thu 24 October 2024 - Sun 19 January 2025

Millennium Gallery

This new exhibition from Hayward Gallery Touring, curated by writer and critic Hettie Judah, plunges 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.

 

The exhibition approaches motherhood as a creative enterprise, one at times tempered by ambivalence, exhaustion or grief. Addressing diverse experiences of motherhood, the displays span themes of creation, caregiving and loss. The heart of the exhibition is a series of revelatory self-portraits – a celebration of the artist as mother.

 

Acts of Creation presents painting, photography, sculpture, sound and film by more than sixty modern and contemporary artists, including Bobby Baker, Marlene Dumas, Tracey Emin, Susan Hiller, Chantal Joffe, Claudette Johnson and Paula Rego. 

 

Artworks in this exhibition address important issues surrounding women’s health and wellbeing, including nudity, childbirth, (in)fertility, miscarriage, abortion, loss, domestic abuse, adoption, sterilisation and obstetric violence. 

Free Entry | Please Donate

Opening Times

Tue–Sat 10am–5pm

Sun 11am–4pm

***Due to a maintenance issue the Millennium Gallery cafe is currently only able to offer hot and cold drinks. We’re working to resolve the issue and offer the food menu again as soon as possible***

Millennium Gallery

Arundel Gate

Sheffield

S1 2PP

Anna Grevenitis, Regard series (2015 -).

© Anna Grevenitis

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