Mother Me Meanly

Ron Athey, Christina Ballantyne, Rene Franco, Emma Fujiko, Shana Hoehn, Casey Kauffmann, Em Kettner, Coco Klockner, Catherine Opie, Cato Ouyang, Lainey Racah, Virginia L. Montgomery, Marsha Pels, Roksana Pirouzmand, Ralph Pugay, Alison Saar, Niki de Saint Phalle, Ann Leda Shapiro, Dorothea Tanning, Hannah Wilke, Carmen Winant, Nancy Youdelman

Chez Max et Dorothea is pleased to present Mother Me Meanly, a group exhibition curated by Lauren Guilford and Shana Hoehn.

Mother Me Meanly considers seemingly deviant definitions of the maternal, rejecting the good mother / bad mother binary and embracing monstrous mothers for their inherent mutability and psychic complexity, while exploring the mother wound as both a site for trauma and transformation. The artists included in the exhibition engage with themes of embodiment, queer kinship, maternal identity, reproductive politics, caretaking, and the idea of giving birth to oneself. They celebrate the indulgent, hyperbolic "flaws" of the monstrous mother, recognizing that these traits are anchored to what it means to be human, living in a body.