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The Sacred Feminine,
Prehistory to Postmodernity

Exhibition at the Museum of Art and Archaeology
University of Missouri,
Aug. 29, 2009-Dec. 24, 2009

This cross-cultural, cross-temporal exhibition encompasses the various roles women have played in religion as reflected in visual culture from antiquity to the present. Artworks represent the ancient Mediterranean (Near Eastern, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, early Christian/Byzantine), western Europe from medieval to present, the Americas, and the non-western world of Africa and Asia. A wide range of media will be represented, including bronze, stone, wood, terracotta sculpture, painting, and textiles.
 
General themes and subjects : 

• The role of female deities in antiquity, particularly the cult of mother/fertility goddesses such as Isis, Demeter, and Venus, and goddesses specifically related to women’s work, maidenhood, marriage, and childbirth, such as Artemis, Athena and Hera/Juno
  
• The transition into the Christian period, in which the cult of the Virgin Mary and various female saints usurped the worship of the pagan goddess
  
• Abstract concepts that came to be embodied as “female” such as victory (Nike), wisdom (Athena), love (Aphrodite/Venus), and thus were represented as goddesses
  
• The human religious component, encompassed by priestesses, nuns, laywomen, and queens styled as goddesses
  
• Non-western equivalents to the goddesses and cults of the western world such as the Hindu goddesses Parvati (fertility, consort of Shiva), Saraswati (wisdom), Durga (warrior), and Lakshmi (wealth)
  
• Postmodern interpretations of women and the spiritual, including a superlative work by feminist artist Nancy Spero, which was the genesis for the exhibition
  

Contributors to the Exhibition: St. Louis Art Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Spencer Museum of Art, and the James Christie Shields Antiquities Collection of Monmouth College (Monmouth, Ill.)

Hosted by the MU Museum of Art and Archaeology with co-sponsorship from the Center on Religion & the Professions and other campus organizations.

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