In 1977, Helen Chadwick (1953-1996) – alongside three other female performers – stepped out in front of an audience dressed as an oven, refrigerator, washing machine and sink. They were taking part in In The Kitchen, Chadwick’s degree show piece, now considered a seminal example of feminist art. First performed at London’s Chelsea College, where Chadwick studied for an MA, it playfully yet incisively critiques gendered stereotypes. It set her on course to make a huge cultural impact. Ten years later, she became one of the first women artists to be nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize.
Life Pleasures is a major retrospective of Chadwick, now open at The Hepworth Wakefield. It’s the first in over 25 years, and it kicks off with Cacao (1994), a bubbling chocolate fountain, which welcomes visitors to the exhibition – overflowing and glooping audibly. The piece is very much “alive,” creating a visceral dialogue with Carcass (1986), a two-metre-high tower into which food waste from the gallery’s café is being deposited. It digests, decays and transforms in real time. Surrounded by machines, organic matter and metabolic cycles, it becomes clear just how key an influence Chadwick has been for the Young British Artists, Damien Hirst in particular. His piece, A Thousand Years (1990), springs straight to mind.
Chadwick’s practice was a maelstrom of unexpected materials: fur, hair, bubble bath, blankets, mattresses, milk, oysters, meat, window cleaner, engine oil, earthworms and carcasses. Piss Flowers (1991-1992) exemplifies this – a series of subversive sculptures made by urinating into the snow in Banff, Canada. The Oval Court (1984-1986) is another boundary- pusher, controversial in feminist circles at the time, comprising cyan-blue photocopied images of her naked body depicted alongside animals, maggots, flowers, fruit and fish. During her life, cut too short in 1996, she established herself as a taboo-breaker and trailblazer: unafraid to confront beauty, decay, mortality – and the contradictions of being a woman in the world. This is a seminal show for the season and one not to be missed.
Life Pleasures is at The Hepworth, Wakefield, Until 26 October.
Words: Eleanor Sutherland
Image Credits:
1. Helen Chadwick with Piss Flowers from the exhibition Helen Chadwick: Effluvia, Serpentine Gallery, 1994 Photo: Kippa Matthews © Kippa Matthews
2. Portrait of Helen Chadwick outside her Hackney home, 1987. Photo by Edward Woodman. © The Estate of Helen Chadwick
3. Helen Chadwick in residence at King’s College Hospital Assisted Conception Unit, London, 1995. © Edward Woodman. All Rights Reserved, DACS. Photo: Edward Woodman
