All About Eve, is co-curated by artist
Soheila Sokhanvari and gallery director
Kristin Hjellegjerde, and references the 1950 film of the same title, which follows the tale of Margo Channing, an aging Broadway star, whose career is threatened by the younger, more ambitious Eve. From this premise of female rivalry, power and patriarchy, this exhibition is a thrilling look at gender-based inequality through the ages.
Sokhanvari and Hjellegjerde have drawn together some incredible works by leading contemporary artists, such as the vibrant, cosmological Kamasan cloth paintings of Balinese artist Citra Sasmita (currently showing at the Barbican’s Curve gallery) and the groundbreaking images of Lindsay Seers who turns herself into a camera by placing light-sensitive paper in her mouth, confronting the medium’s long history of objectification, especially of women.
Elsewhere, encounter extraordinary, arresting pieces on childbirth and motherhood by Sutapa Biswas, and the beautiful nacre sculptures of Zayn Qahtani, approaching the female body as a vessel not only for birth, but as a portal between the earth and cosmos. Through works by fourteen artists, this group show is revelatory and empowering, an original and compelling exploration of female creativity and triumph.