Nancy Spero's "Torture of Women"

The AS220 Project Space/Reading Room is excited to offer Nancy Spero's Torture of Women published by Siglio Press.

This epic artwork, juxtaposing testimony by female victims of torture with startling imagery from the ancient world, is as powerful now as when it was created in 1976. Artistic ingenuity coupled with boldly feminist and political intent, Torture of Women is a public cry of outrage and a nuanced exploration of the continuum of violence and the isolation of pain. It is also a pivotal work by an American artist whose immense impact has yet to be fully examined.

Siglio's publication, three years in the making, translates the 125 ft. work into nearly 100 pages of detail so that the entirety of Torture of Women---with legible texts and vibrant color reproductions---can be experienced with immediacy and intimacy, providing a unique opportunity to engage this influential but infrequently exhibited work of art. Siglio's publication of Torture of Women also serves as a centrifuge for conversation, raising provocative questions that cross the borders of art, politics, feminism, and human rights.

Nancy Spero, was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1926, studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

"Her work since the 1960s is an unapologetic statement against the pervasive abuse of power, Western privilege, and male dominance. Executed with a raw intensity on paper and in ephemeral installations, her work often draws its imagery and subject matter from current and historical events such as the torture of women in Nicaragua, the extermination of Jews in the Holocaust, and the atrocities of the Vietnam War. Spero samples from a rich range of visual sources of women as protagonists--from Egyptian hieroglyphics, 17th Century French history painting, and Frederick's of Hollywood lingerie advertisements. Her figures, in full command of their bodies, co-existing in nonhierarchical compositions on monumental scrolls, visually reinforce principles of equality and tolerance. "

Nancy Spero passed away last October at age 83.

Read an interview with her from 2008 here. Read an interview with Natalie Kraft on the making of the Siglio book Torture of Women here.

Nancy Spero's Torture of Women published by Siglio Press is available at the AS220 Project Space for $42 dollars. For more info neal@as220.org.