05-07-2025
A pioneering threesome reveals the great erotic divide of the sexes
T he differences between men and women are both obvious and subtle. The obvious ones continue to be the subject of an unpleasant turf war on X and are none of this column's business. But the subtle differences take us deep into the world of art, and there we do need to take notice.
Two women-only shows that have opened in London plunge us into the distaff side of artistic creativity, and manage, in their varied ways, to emphasise the creative divide between the sexes.
Abstract Erotic, at the Courtauld Gallery, is the bigger and more enticing of the two events. It brings together three women artists working in America in the 1960s whose sculpture was so tangibly female it constituted a fresh voice. Something whispery, nervy and sexual had arrived in the galleries of New York.
