Doing Max Mara Art Prize for Women: Emma Talbot. The Age / L’Età

A powerful new body of work by Emma Talbot, winner of the eighth edition of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, lands at the Whitechapel Gallery this summer. Featuring animation, free-hanging painted silk panels, sculpture and drawings, Talbot’s first major survey exhibition explores themes of representation and ageing, power and governance, and attitudes towards women and nature.

The exhibition is the result of a six-month Italian residency, organised by Collezione Maramotti, during which Talbot researched textile craftsmanship, permaculture and classical mythology. Central to the show is The Age/L’Età, a work inspired by Gustav Klimt’s painting Three Ages of Woman (1905). While Klimt depicts a naked elderly woman holding her head in shame, Talbot reimagines the figure as a woman with agency.

Also on show is a 12-chapter animation, in which Talbot’s protagonist must overcome a series of trials similar to The Twelve Labours of Hercules, and a series of preparatory drawings for the animations. Elsewhere, you’ll encounter large-scale hanging silk works depicting volcanic landscapes and a life-seized sculpture of the elderly woman in The Age/ L’Età made from stuffed soft fabrics.

Before heading off, makes sure to swing by The London Open 2022 (30 June — 4 September), the much-celebrated open submission show featuring 46 London-based artists working across painting, sculpture, moving image, installation and performance. Whether you’re a contemporary art fan or not, there’ll be something here to tickle your fancy.