Chez Max et Dorothea is pleased to announce Mother Me Meanly,  a group exhibition as curated by Lauren Guilford and Shana Hoehn. The exhibition opens Saturday, May 17th, with a reception from 5 pm - 8 pm and will be on view until July 12th, 2025. A curatorial walkthrough will take place at 5:30 PM, on Saturday, May 17th with some of the artists in attendance.

Dear Mother,

You don’t have to hide your monstrosity. I sense it, bubbling beneath your veil of sanctity (which is thinner than you think). It bears an odor of rage. This Monster in you reveals the Monster in me, and I WANT TO BE A MONSTER.  Becoming anything at all is a monstrous affair, and I need to become. Otherwise, I fear I may sink or be swallowed whole. So please, be grotesque, be angry, be selfish, be nonsensical, be too much—be everything. I WANT TO SHOW EVERYTHING. My heart, my emotions. Green–red–yellow–blue—violet, all colors.*  I find myself in your monstrousness, in your deviance, in your cruel malformations. So, please, I’m asking you nicely to mother me meanly.

Love,

Your Monster

                                                                                                                                                                 -  Lauren Guilford

Mother Me Meanly considers seemingly deviant definitions of the maternal, rejecting the good mother / bad mother binary and embracing monstrous mothers for their inherent mutability and psychic complexity, while exploring the mother wound as both a site for trauma and transformation. The artists included in the exhibition engage with themes of embodiment, queer kinship, maternal identity, reproductive politics, caretaking, and the idea of giving birth to oneself. They celebrate the indulgent, hyperbolic "flaws" of the monstrous mother, recognizing that these traits are anchored to what it means to be human, living in a body.

Artists included in the exhibition are Ron Athey, Christina Ballantyne, Rene Franco, Emma Fujiko, Shana Hoehn, Casey Kauffmann, Em Kettner, Coco Klockner, Catherine Opie, Cato Ouyang, Lainey Racah, Virginia L. Montgomery, Marsha Pels, Roksana Pirouzmand, Ralph Pugay, Alison Saar, Niki de Saint Phalle, Ann Leda Shapiro, Dorothea Tanning, Hannah Wilke, Carmen Winant, and Nancy Youdelman.

* Fictive letter from Niki de Saint Phalle to her mother, in Niki de Saint Phalle, ed. Pontus Hultén, exh. Cat. Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutsch-land, Bonn; MacLellan Galleries, Glasgow; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (Stuttgart, 1992, revised ed. 1995), pp 185-86.