The Infinite Woman

Strong, lustful, fatal, loving, demonic, tempting, or mythical, women have been represented in many ways over the centuries, often in response to a patriarchal vision of the world. Exploring identity, sexuality, pleasure, and power, “The Infinite Woman” sheds light on the ways in which women have been viewed from the earliest myths to the most contemporary and subversive representations. Here, art liberates women’s bodies from Western beauty canons, offering reinvented models that challenge not only social norms but also the limits of art itself as well as its oppressive categories. Organised thematically, the exhibition draws on ideas of myths and monsters in the representation of women to reflect on womanhood in all its many guises. Moving between images of goddesses and scrutinising the idea of the femme fatale, from disruptive ideas of motherhood to paying homage to the power of women’s desire, from beguiling fairytale creatures to cyborgs highlighting their emancipatory potential, and from elevating (dis)obedient bodies that upend Western conventions of beauty while reflecting on the body as vessel, the exhibition closes with a section devoted to sirens and anti-icons to explore how gender is shifting in the 21st century. Ultimately, the works in the exhibition disrupt conventional ideas of womanhood to reflect on feminine power and how the representation of women has shaped global cultural attitudes.