Nancy Spero
Black and the Red III - 2 (diptych), 2003
Jacquard tapestry
82 x 17 in. each

Nancy Spero’s indelible oeuvre draws together imagery and figures from ancient mythology, contemporary media, literature, and her own work, redefining and rearranging them into a series of haunting transmissions. In Spero’s The Black and the Red series, the ghostly silhouettes of a band of ancient Egyptian courtesans blend their music with abstracted fields of color and incredibly rich woven textures. A studied, thoughtful alchemy is at work here, as Spero’s juxtapositions corrode the world of signs and meaning to reveal the hidden realms of history and memory. -Nick Stone