Post-Partum Document: Document VI: Pre-writing Alphabet, Exergue and Diary, detail, 1 of 15 units

Pre-writing Alphabet, Exergue and Diary, detail, 1 of 15 units ; Post-Partum Document is a seminal work of the seventies in which the mother-child motif is addressed in a radically new way. The work itself consists of a total of 139 individual parts and was exhibited by the Generali Foundation in its entirety for the first time in 1998. This was also the first showing of the work in the German speaking world. In "Post-Partum Document" Kelly uses the conceptualist procedure of documentation to introduce an interrogation of the subject. The "Introduction" and the six following sections deal with the relationship of the working mother with her (male) child. The artist observes the emergence of gender difference and broaches the controversial topic of female fetishism. Psychoanalysis, in particular its linguistic reformulation by Jacques Lacan, represents an important reference for this work. "Post-Partum Document" has been widely exhibited and intensely debated since the shock of its first appearance in the seventies. ; 1 of 15 units