MOTHER!

Whether loving or impersonal, near or far, living or deceased—she always remains the origin and beginning of human life: the mother. There is hardly a word that gives rise to more diverse associations, sentiments and role clichés. With the international exhibition project MOTHER! the Kunsthalle Mannheim shows how differently perceptions of motherhood are reflected in art.

More than 150 exhibits
From prehistoric fertility goddesses to Renaissance pictures of the Virgin Mary all the way to contemporary installations—more than 150 artworks and objects relate the history of motherhood from various perspectives. The show combines artistic positions with art history, religion, literature, music, cinema, design, and the history of medicine, thus showing that art is connected with general cultural ideas and phenomena.

Focus on the 20th century
The exhibition features works by Egon Schiele, Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch, René Magritte and Otto Dix, among others. With works by Paula Modersohn-Becker, Louise Bourgeois, Yoko Ono, Rineke Dijkstra, Tracey Emin, Laure Prouvost and VALIE EXPORT, however, the show focuses primarily on a time when the feminist movement was questioning the traditional role of women. From the 20th century that saw the invention of the birth control pill and the legalization of abortion to present-day role conceptions between new family structures and queer parenthood, the image of the mother is explored with respect to cultural expectations and norms.

Six core themes
The exhibition approaches the theme of “mother” via six core themes: “Madonna,” “Memory—Mother of the Artist,” “Mother’s Voice,” “Mothering,” “Fertility,” and “History of Motherhood: Ten Highlights.” These ten historical stops illustrate how societal change and the political struggle of the women’s movement radically changed motherhood, such as the introduction of the right to vote for women in 1918.

An exhibition of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark in cooperation with Kunsthalle Mannheim.

Curators: Marie Laurberg (Louisiana Museum of Modern Art), Kirsten Degel (Louisiana Museum of Modern Art), Johan Holten (Kunsthalle Mannheim)