Helen Chadwick at Museo Novecento: “Life Pleasures,” a Sensory and Radical Retrospective

From 25 November 2025 to 1 March 2026, Museo Novecento in Florence presents the first major Italian retrospective dedicated to Helen Chadwick.

Helen Chadwick with Piss Flower

Life Pleasures, curated by Sergio Risaliti, Stefania Rispoli, and Laura Smith, offers a journey through the work of an artist who revolutionised the way we think about the body, matter, and the image. The exhibition opens on a symbolic date—the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women—highlighting the political and ethical urgency of her practice.

Organised in collaboration with The Hepworth Wakefield and Kunsthaus Graz, the exhibition traces Chadwick’s entire career (1953–1996), from her early work In the Kitchen (1977) to the iconic Piss Flowers (1991–92). It is the first retrospective of this scale in over twenty-five years, offering a long-overdue opportunity to reconsider an artist who, with irony and boldness, challenged aesthetic conventions, cultural taboos, and disciplinary boundaries.

Helen Chadwick,Self Portrait, 1991.Jupiter Artland Foundation.© Estate of HelenChadwick. Courtesy Richard SaltounLondon, Rome, New York

Chadwick conceived the artwork as a total experience—visual, tactile, olfactory, even gustatory—capable of embracing both pleasure and repulsion, desire and disturbance. Her practice spans sculpture, installation, photography, printmaking, and performance, venturing into territories that were, at the time, largely unexplored. Seductive materials such as flowers and fabrics coexist with bodily, organic, or unsettling elements: chocolate, hair, bubble bath, meat, urine, decomposing vegetables. It is within this friction—halfway between sensual and grotesque—that Chadwick forged her unique language.

A feminist, unruly, and visionary figure, she explored themes of sexuality, identity, vulnerability, illness, and beauty through an aesthetic that was both sumptuous and deeply political. She was one of the first women nominated for the Turner Prize (1987) and became a key influence on subsequent generations: among her students were Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, and Damien Hirst. Her impact on the British art scene has been profound and enduring.

Fancy Dress and Sculptures Photograph Book, 1974. Leeds Museums and Galleries (Henry Moore Institute Archive of Sculptors’ Papers). © Estat e of Helen Chadwick. Courtesy Richard Saltoun London, Rome, New York

Museo Novecento now restores the burning relevance of her work: an oeuvre that continues to question the limits of the body, the role of the feminine, the fragility of matter, and the power of images. Life Pleasures is not merely a retrospective, but an invitation to rediscover an artist able to transform matter into thought—and thought into sensory experience.

Museo Novecento

P.za di Santa Maria Novella, 10, 50123 Firenze

Date

25 novembre – 1 marzo 2026