Throughout her practice, the artist, activist, writer and eco-feminist Monica Sjöö (1938–2005) fought an uncompromising battle for freedom from all forms of oppression.
Monica Sjöö was controversial throughout her life. In raw and bold imagery, she was an early advocate of women’s right to sexual empowerment and free abortion. She became politically aware in her youth, through demonstrations against the Vietnam war, the anarchist movement and the independent art scene in Stockholm. These experiences laid the foundation for Sjöö’s vivid existence as an artist and activist in the UK, where she spent most of her life, and where she became a key figure in the British women’s liberation movement.
“The Great Cosmic Mother” is the first retrospective museum exhibition of Monica Sjöö’s oeuvre. Featuring some fifty works from Sjöö’s entire practice, it spans from monumental paintings, over political posters and banners, to drawings and material from the artist’s large archives.
Today a feminist icon, Monica Sjöö’s painting “God Giving Birth” (1968) was considered both blasphemous and obscene at the time, and was constantly being removed from the exhibitions where it was shown. The 1970s may be perceived as the decade of women’s liberation, but this painting almost got Sjöö prosecuted when it was exhibited in the UK in 1973.
Censorship merely strengthened Sjöö in her resolve to portray women’s experiences in her art. Rejecting abstract art as a Western male privilege, she asked herself:
“How does one communicate women’s strength, struggle, rising up from oppression, blood, childbirth, sexuality – in stripes and triangles?”
Sjöö’s lifelong research into ancient matriarchal cultures influenced her philosophy and artistic practice. She used her knowledge to outline an alternative possible future, where spirituality and political change were united. Sjöö looked back in history to find voices and contexts that could resound mightily in the contemporary world and pave the way for a total revolution.
More information on the event can be found here.