The first museum exhibition in the German-speaking world on the art star Paula Rego features around 120 exhibits covering the artist's entire oeuvre. Paula Rego. Power Games opens on September 28 at the Kunstmuseum Basel.
Drastic, haunting, abysmally humorous: Paula Rego (1935-2022) is one of the most original and important figurative artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Her unsettling pictures often tell complex stories about power games and hierarchies, which to a certain extent are the Portuguese-British artist's guiding themes. Inspired by true events, literary or cinematic models, Rego illuminates the lives of women from ignored or hushed-up perspectives. Family dependencies, power dynamics between men and women or state violence: Rego directs her gaze to where social change is needed. One of the most famous examples is her Abortion series (1998-99), which protested against the legislation in Portugal at the time, which still forced women to undergo illegal and life-threatening interventions. Around 120 exhibits – paintings, pastels, some dolls and contemporary documents – in the exhibition Paula Rego. Power Games represent her decades of work. The show runs from September 28, 2024 to February 2, 2025 at the Kunstmuseum Basel.
Rego began making political collages as a young artist after studying at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1952 to 1956. In particular, she addressed the dictatorial regime of Oliveira Salazar in Portugal, where she grew up. In the mid-1960s, after her husband was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Rego switched to painting and a style based on Magical Realism. Above all, she examined the role of women in the family, the constant pressure placed on them and their oppression. From the mid-1990s, Rego extended this investigation to the role of women in society in general and switched from acrylics to pastels. The artist has received numerous awards and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1989.
In her first solo exhibition in Vienna, renowned artist Hito Steyerl presents critical analyses of the connection between technological development and socio-political conflicts. The show Humanity Had the Bullet Go In Through One Ear and Out Through the Other opens on June 25 at the Museum of Applied Arts.
Two parallel exhibitions are opening at the Courtauld Gallery in London, introducing the work of pioneering female artists of the 1960s. On display are sculptures with an unusual choice of materials and, in the other show, drawings by Louise Bourgeois. Both exhibitions can be seen from June 20.
