apexart
2023-24 NYC Proposal
submitted October 2022

Fruits of Labor— Reframing Motherhood and Artmaking
submitted by: Bruna Shapira
The exhibition "Fruits of Labor— Reframing Motherhood and Artmaking" calls for a shift
in the paradigms of both mothering and artistic expression. The rst is still seen as aburden in the art world. Tracy Emin said: "There are good artists that have children. —They are called men", while Marina Abramović declared that kids would have destroyed
her career. The show aims to challenge the idea of the "solitary artist", echoed by Emin,
Abramović and others throughout Art History, arguing that it's not motherhood that is in
con ict with artmaking but rather the prevailing narratives framing womanhood andartmaking, as well as systemic issues affecting women particularly in the US, where
public policies to support mothers and pregnant people are virtually nonexistent.
"Fruits of Labor" brings together artists whose work discuss, respond to or emerge fromchildbirth and motherhood. Working on a variety of media and coming from different
stages in their careers, they not only interrogate parenthood publicly, but embrace its
constraints — the nap-length studio time, the fragmented, interrupted focus, therepetitive, durational approach and the limited resources — as themes and modes ofwork.
Ahna Serendren's "ES/AS Collaborative Drawing 2-2-21" (2021) is a collaboration
between the artist and her 2 ½ year old daughter. Like many women in the US,
Serendren didn't have access to childcare during the pandemic. To work, she had totake her child to the studio. The pieces grapple with the delight and resentment
embedded in the experience of mothering. They also evoke interruption as a rhythm ofmotherhood— time and authorship are no longer her own but caught in eeting
moments.
Lenka Clayton's "63 Objects Taken From My Son's Mouth" (2013) employs buttons,
chalk, Christmas decoration, cigarette butt, coins, metro ticket — artifacts from their life
together — to document the worries of parenthood. The labor used to make such
installation is one that underscores the hidden load of mothering.
Cara Romero's "Julia & Jocelyn" (2018), part of Romero's The First American Girl
series, is a response to the lack of Native American dolls, which she noticed after
having her daughter. A highly staged composition of a life-sized doll box, Julia & Jocelyn
depicts a mother and daughter duo posing as culture bearers with their own everyday
items â€” heirloom, precolonial cultural artifacts.The goal is illuminating Indigenous

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New York, NY 10013
212.431.5270
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worldviews and showcase child-raising as an intergenerational, collective endeavor, as
opposed to the Western, "colonized" views of motherhood and child-rearing.
Katya Meykson's sculptures Untitled (2019) recon gures organic patterns, natural
shapes and old fabrics into a talismanic, tactile piece that nods to soft blankets â€” thetransitional objects that help young children slowly transition to independence.
The public program showcases a screening of Irene Luzstig's "The Motherhood
Archives" (2013). Combining archival montage, science ction and an homage to 1970s
feminist lmmaking, this essay lm excavates the changing political and social
constructions of motherhood while raising important questions to anyone (man orwoman, mother or not) living in the US post the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

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291 Church Street
New York, NY 10013
212.431.5270
info@apexart.org; www.apexart.org