Sylvia Sleigh
A Visceral Eye
16 May–1 September 2013
CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux
Entrepôt. 7, rue Ferrère
F-33000 Bordeaux, France
A Visceral Eye is the fourth step of the most comprehensive retrospective to date of Welsh-born realist painter Sylvia Sleigh. The CAPC shows a large selection of her works, curated by Alexis Vaillant, asking the question of the academicism of the representation regarding the radicalism of the speech of the artist.
Sylvia Sleigh gained critical success in the 1960s and ’70s as an important instigator of New York’s feminist art scene. Known for her explicit male nudes that quote and subvert the art historical tradition of male gaze onto female body, in her portraits feature artists, musicians and writers of both genders, dressed and naked, representing a pantheon of significant cultural figures. Exploring contemporary portraiture as an intimate dialogue between artist and sitter, Sleigh’s practice elevated her subjects, aiming to remove objectification from art. In these portraits, she combined bold sensuality with a personal feminism that placed her at the heart of a discourse on power, representation, and gender.
Sylvia Sleigh (1916–2010) was born in Wales. In 1961 she moved to New York, where she spent the rest of her life.
The exhibition is a joint production by the Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, the Kunsthalle, Sankt Gallen, and the CAPC musée d’art contemporain, in Bordeaux. It will be shown at the Tate Liverpool and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville.
Curator: Alexis Vaillant, Chief Curator at the CAPC
Also on view from 16 May 2013:
Markus Schinwald
Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Aftershow
David Lieske, Platitude Normale
