Liberties – Reflecting on 40 years since the Sex Discrimination Act

Collyer Bristow Gallery  Curated by Day+Gluckman

2 JULY – 21 OCTOBER 2015  Private view 1st July, 2015

Guler Ates, Helen Barff, Sutapa Biswas, Sonia Boyce, Jemima Burrill, Helen Chadwick, Sarah Duffy, Rose English, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Alison Gill, Helena Goldwater, Joy Gregory, Margaret Harrison, Alexis Hunter, Frances Kearney, EJ Major, Eleanor Moreton, Hayley Newman, Freddie Robins, Monica Ross, Jo Spence, Jessica Voorsanger, Alice May Williams and Carey Young

Works by over 20 women artists will reflect the changes in art practice within the context of sexual and gender equality since the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act (1975) in the UK. Some artists confront issues that galvanised the change in law whilst others carved their own place in a complex and male dominated art world. From the radical movements of the 1960s and 70s, the politics of the 80s, the boom of lad culture in the 1990s to the current fourth wave of feminism, encouraged largely through and because of social media, all of the artists’ question equality and identity in very different ways.

The exhibition presents a snapshot of the evolving conversations that continue to contribute to the mapping of a woman’s place in British society.  Body, femininity, sex, motherhood, economic and political status are explored through film, photography, sculpture, performance and painting.