Tuesday 18 July 2017

Review of Ida Applebroog: Mercy Hospital Hauser & Wirth, London

18/07/17
Ida Applebroog: Mercy Hospital
Hauser & Wirth, London
19 May – 29 July 2017

In 1969, Ida Horowitz (b1929), a struggling artist and mother of four, recently moved from Chicago to San Diego, was driving her two young sons to the zoo when suddenly she felt herself unravelling. She was unable to tell red from green, and her children had to guide her through set upon set of traffic lights. Later that day, recognising the danger, she checked herself into the mental health ward of Mercy Hospital.


Ida – who went on to become the internationally successful feminist artist Ida Applebroog (a made-up surname adopted when she felt the need to distance herself from both her maiden name, Appelbaum, and her married name, Horowitz) – had with her a sketchbook. During her six-week stay on the ward, she filled this with drawings and scribbled thoughts, and it is these excavations of her mind that now – after 40 years buried in a basement locker, until they were rediscovered by an studio assistant in 2009 – fill the walls of Hauser & Wirth London’s south gallery in a revealing and insightful show.


Read the review here




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