$48 Clothbound 156 pages, Illustrated ISBN 978-0-9799562-2-5
Torture of Women is Nancy Spero's fierce and enduring contribution to contemporary
art, to feminist thought and action, and to the continuing protest against torture,
injustice, and the abuse of power.
This epic artwork, juxtaposing testimony by female victims of torture with startling
imagery from the ancient world, is as powerful now as when it was created in 1976.
Artistic ingenuity coupled with boldly feminist and political intent, Torture of Women
is a public cry of outrage and a nuanced exploration of the continuum of violence and
the isolation of pain. It is also a pivotal work by an American artist whose immense
impact has yet to be fully examined.
Siglio's publication, three years in the making, translates the 125 ft. work into nearly
100 pages of detail so that the entirety of Torture of Women---with legible texts and
vibrant color reproductions---can be experienced with immediacy and intimacy, providing
a unique opportunity to engage this influential but infrequently exhibited work
of art. Siglio's publication of Torture of Women also serves as a centrifuge for conversation,
raising provocative questions that cross the borders of art, politics, feminism,
and human rights.
With an essay "Fourteen Meditations of Torture of Women by Nancy Spero" by Diana
Nemiroff; "Symmetries," a story by Luisa Valenzuela; and an excerpt from The
Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World by Elaine Scarry.
NANCY SPERO (1926 - 2009, born Cleveland, Ohio) is regarded as a pioneer in
feminist art who has had a profound influence on subsequent generations of women
artists. After working for almost twenty-five years in relative obscurity, her work received
considerable international acclaim with more than a dozen solo museum exhibitions
around the world, including a limited retrospective scheduled for Fall 2010
at Centre Pompidou in Paris. In addition to solo shows at the ICA in London, MOCA
in Los Angeles, the New Museum in New York, among others, her work has been
included in numerous group exhibitions including, most recently, WACK: Art and the
Feminist Revolution, the Whitney Biennial 2006, and Think with the Senses---Feel with
the Mind: Art in the Present Tense at the 52nd Venice Biennale. A retrospective catalog
from Prestel is scheduled for publication later this year.
Someday the hatred and cruelty
inscribed in Spero's work may be
a thing of the past, but so long as
they blight the world, and so long as
women confront state violence with
the courage that Spero also commemorates,
this work will be a testament
to the fact that committed art
can speak truth to power---and does
so most effectively when speaking
with the greatest formal, theoretical
and poetic sophistication.
Artist Edition: Nancy Spero
