Nancy Spero & Marcus Coates, Serpentine Gallery

Angry art with a sense of social responsibility.

by Sarah KentSunday, 13 March 2011

A maypole greets you on entry to the Serpentine Gallery; don’t expect a cheery celebration of spring, though. Nancy Spero’s installation Maypole: Take No Prisoners II (2008) is a scream of rage against violence and its hapless victims. Dangling from coloured ribbons, dozens of decapitated heads hang in the air like an explosion of shrapnel. Mouths gape open in pain and terror - or is it hatred? One can’t be sure, since some seem to be spitting venom from bloody tongues as though, even in their death throws, they are intent on spreading a gospel of vengeance and destruction.

The penis of Male Bomb has multiplied into five serpentine blades endowed with venomous heads

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