Mary Kelly. Post-Partum Document. The complete work (1973–79)

Post-Partum Document by Mary Kelly is the result of a study of the mother-child relationship and was created over six years in the 1970s when the artist was living in London. In this seminal work, Kelly sheds a completely new light on the mother-child motif and the process of documentation that was common in conceptual art at the time. When it was first exhibited at the ICA in London in 1976, the work caused outrage in the tabloid press because stained nappy liners were included in the documentation. The work, consisting of an introduction and six subsequent sections, a total of 139 individual parts, is in various collections and was shown in its entirety in this exhibition and for the first time in a German-speaking country.

In the introduction to Post-Partum Document (1973–78) and the six sections that follow, Mary Kelly (born 1941, lives in Los Angeles, US) addresses the relationship between herself as a working mother and her young son. Questions about the emergence of gender difference and female fetishism take center stage. The individual sections document the child’s development up to the age of five and reflect on the process of mutual socialization between mother and child. Small vests, nappy liners, traces of drawing and writing, handprints, as well as plant and insect specimens represent the mother’s memories. But they also represent the way in which she processes the separation from her child. The artist has added diary-like comments and quasi-scientific data to these personal objects. Subjective references and distanced, theoretical approaches in the form of diagrams are juxtaposed. Mary Kelly’s long process of reflection and visualization is now regarded as unique in art history.

Mary Kelly’s critical engagement with psychoanalysis and the application of these insights in consciousness-raising groups, the women’s movement of the 1970s and the artist’s provocative attitude towards conceptual art form the background to this multi-faceted work of art. The exhibition was complemented with works by Kelly that are closely associated with the Post-Partum Document, the photo series Primapara (1974/1996), the films Antepartum (1973) and Nightcleaners (1975). A compilation of materials from Mary Kelly’s archive, curated by Juli Carson, illustrated the creation and reception of Post-Partum Document and the artist’s role in the (feminist) art movement of the 1970s.