Artworks
ALICE BLACK is delighted to present Lady Lilith, a group exhibition that reexamines the enduring legacy of the 19th-century Aesthetic Movement and its influence on 20th-and 21st-century artistic practice - through a radical new lens.
Lady Lilith features a distinguished group of artists - Alexander Ekholm, Leonor Fini, Tristan Pigott, Anna Sampson, Katie Surridge, and Atalanta Xanthe - presenting a dynamic collection of works across painting, sculpture, photography, video, and works on paper.
The Aesthetic Movement (1860–1900), often narrowly defined by its devotion to beauty, was in fact a radical countercultural force. By championing the principle of art for art’s sake, it disrupted centuries of artistic convention, asserting that art need not serve moral, religious, or utilitarian purposes. This conceptual shift not only redefined the role of the artist but laid the groundwork for the idea that anything can be art - a notion that would catalyse the experimental spirit of modernism and postmodernism in the 20th & 21st Century.
Far from being merely escapist or decorative, Aestheticism was a deliberate rejection of dominant Victorian ideologies. It opposed rigid moral codes, institutional dogma, and prescriptive narratives, advocating instead for artistic autonomy, subjective experience, and aesthetic freedom. The movement celebrated sensory pleasure and imaginative expression, drawing inspiration from a rich tapestry of sources - including Greek antiquity, Renaissance art, medieval ornamentation, botany, mythology, the human body and the so-called "Orient."
The movement’s influence extended beyond image-making to modes of display and design. James McNeill Whistler’s Arrangement in White and Yellow (1883) is widely credited as the first "white cube" exhibition, presenting artworks in a sparse, unified space that broke from the cluttered salon-style hang of the Royal Academy. This minimalist approach remains a dominant - if contested - norm in contemporary exhibition- making, raising questions about access, neutrality, and the politics of display.
In today’s socio-political climate - marked by pandemics, ecological crisis, economic disparity, cultural backlash, and the accelerating presence of AI - there is a renewed interest in the sensual, the subversive, the handmade, the fantastical, and the immersive. Yet the central question remains: can aesthetics ever be truly apolitical? Or are they inevitably shaped by - and complicit in - the conditions from which they emerge?
Lady Lilith presents artists whose practices wrestle with these tensions, drawing on themes from queer theory, gender politics, and post-humanism to interrogate what beauty means today - and what it conceals.
‘Lady Lilith’
Thursday 12 June – Saturday 12 July 2025
ALICE BLACK, 7 Windmill St, London, W1T 2JD
Wednesday – Friday, 11am-5pm. Saturday 12pm – 5pm & by appointment.
For available works and further information please contact: info@aliceblackgallery.com
INSTALLATION VIEWS
