Pippy Houldsworth Gallery is delighted to announce that Mary Kelly's Post-Partum Document: Documentation VI, Pre-writing Alphabet, Exergue and Diary (Silver Autone Prints), 1983, has been acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
Post-Partum Document VI: Silver Autone Prints is composed of 15 parts, based on the artist's artwork of the same name (Arts Council England Collection). It was whilst working on the book version for Post-Partum Document that Kelly devised this rare photographic technique. In this work, Kelly explores ideas of linguistic formation and the development of language and meaning, referencing the Rosetta Stone. The piece exemplifies Kelly's argument that patriarchal ideology is internalised within gender identity, as the text depicts her son practicing his alphabet with the specific intention of being able to write his own surname.
Mary Kelly’s Post-Partum Document: Documentation VI (1978), to which the LACMA work refers, is currently on view as part of Breaking the Mould: Sculpture by Women since 1945, an Arts Council Collection exhibition, touring from Yorkshire Sculpture Park; to Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham; and Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, amongst others. My James (2008) is now on view at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, as part of its permanent collection, and her work will also be included in Picturing Motherhood Now, Cleveland Museum of Art, opening 16 October 2021. Other institutions that recently acquired Kelly's work include Museum of Modern Art, New York (MOMA); Brighton Art Gallery, UK; Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa; Muzeum Sztuki, Łodzi, Poland.
