Penguin Random House, Sachbücher, Helen Chadwick (Englisch, Marina Warner, 2022)

An illustrated exploration of Helen Chadwick&rsquo s erotic, playful, and fierce 1986 installation. In 1986 the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London showed a new commission by the artist Helen Chadwick (1954&ndash 1996). What Chadwick conceived for the ICA exhibition explored her characteristic themes&mdash the female body (her own), the aesthetics of pleasure, the material variety and wonder of phenomena&mdash but took them in a new, flamboyant direction. In this illustrated volume, Marina Warner examines one part of Chadwick&rsquo s installation, The Oval Court. This work was erotic, playful, and fierce it showed imaginative ambition on an exceptional scale and a unique, piquant sensibility, both raunchy and delicate. Despite the work&rsquo s recognition as a feminist monument of rare intensity, it has rarely been shown or discussed since the author&rsquo s catalogue essay for the original exhibition. Warner here reconsiders Chadwick&rsquo s influence as an artist who helped to shift conventional aesthetics and transvalue despised, even abominated forms. Exploring the work&rsquo s richly layered composition in light of intervening years, Warner shows how Chadwick&rsquo s imagination has shaped many artists&rsquo ideas and ethics, and emboldened their adventures with materials. .