Nancy Spero (August 24, 1926 – October 18, 2009)

“I have deliberately attempted to distance my art from the Western emphasis on the subjective portrayal of individuality by using a hand-printing and collage technique utilizing zinc plates as an artist’s tool instead of a brush or palette knife. Figures derived from various cultures co-exist in simultaneous time… The figures themselves could become hieroglyphs–extensions of a text denoting rites of passage, birth to old age, motion and gesture…Woman as activator or protagonist dancing in procession, elegiac or celebrator a continuous presence, engaged directly or glimpsed peripherally; the eye, as a moving camera, scans the re-imaging of women.”

–From an unpublished 1989 statement by the artist entitled “The Continuous Presence.”

From The Guardian: “Nancy Spero’s death means the art world loses its conscience.”

John Madera

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John Madera's fiction may be found in Conjunctions, Opium Magazine, The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, and many other journals. His criticism may be found in American Book Review, Bookforum, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Rain Taxi: Review of Books, The Believer, The Brooklyn Rail, and many other venues. Recipient of an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University, John Madera lives in New York City, where he runs Rhizomatic and manages and edits Big Other.