Feminist gallery tour: Wiebke Leister and Catherine McCormack uncover how contradictory snake iconographies have been used in both mythological and biblical paintings.
Date; Friday, 16 February 2024

About: Of old, snakes have embodied conflicting hybridities that represent both wisdom and deceit, danger and healing, redemption and destruction.
Join Wiebke Leister and Catherine McCormack for two short 30-minute tours as they reflect on how snake iconographies are used to trigger our symbolic good-evil associations. Their conversations will reveal how the image of the transgressive serpent becomes a chance to revisit themes of patriarchal repression and feminist resistance from history, bringing them together with today’s lived experiences.

6.30-7.00pm: We discover the characters of the Medusa, the most famous of the monster figures known as Gorgons, in Luca Giordano’s ‘Perseus turning Phineas and his Followers to Stone’, as well as the satyr tangled in writhing snakes found in Titian’s ‘Bacchus and Ariadne’.

7.30-8.00pm: We explore the story of Moses and 'The Brazen Serpent' as seen in Peter Paul Rubens' painting, as well as the setting of the snake watching ‘Adam and Eve’ from above in Jan Gossaert’s depiction of the Garden of Eden.

This event was part of the Friday Lates, curated by Joseph Kendra.