The Mother Position

The power of the object relationship

The relationship between mother and child or between caretaker and infant is traditionally depicted in the visual arts as a symbiotic fusion. See, for example, Raphael's portraits of the Virgin Mary. However, this exhibition - inspired by the English psychoanalyst Melanie Klein - takes a different look at those early childhood "object relationships" that characterise our relationship with other people throughout our lives. In addition to love and affection, according to Klein, the bond between a small child and its mother or caretaker is also characterised by aggression, ambivalence and fear fantasies. "The Mother Position" brings together artistic works in which the complex abysses of this object relationship are revealed and negotiated. The long-term consequences of this paradigmatic relationship also resonate. Precisely because no artistic practice can do without a reference to objects, it is worthwhile examining the equally libidinous and destructive object fantasies. The fact that bad feelings, divisions and one-sided distortions play a decisive role in the social interactions of today's society is therefore not only due to the much-vaunted "polarisation" or social media. Rather, "The Mother Position" demonstrates that our relationships with others are also an expression of an inner psychic life that is projected outwards (while external events are introjected). The exhibition is less concerned with motherhood in the narrower sense than with a psychic position and its object relations that begin in early childhood. According to Klein, we take up this position again and again in the course of our lives. Moreover, it is a position - and this is the central argument of "The Mother Position" - that also characterises the artists' relationship to their objects and occasionally even appears in them. (Isabelle Graw in her text "The Power of the Object Relationship")

Exhibition:
CFA Contemporary Fine Arts, Basel, 31/8 - 26/10/2024