Eleanor Antin: A Retrospective

Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean is pleased to announce a major retrospective of the pioneering American artist Eleanor Antin, a key figure in contemporary art whose approach to exploring identities and historical narratives resonates loudly with today’s discourse. The artist’s first large-scale exhibition ever presented in Europe, this survey offers an immersion into over fifty years of work, marked by a radical and multidisciplinary approach. Born in 1935 in New York, Antin played a pivotal role in the development of conceptual art, performance and feminist movements, leaving a profound impact on American art of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Organised in collaboration with the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Eleanor Antin: A Retrospective traces the journey of this visionary artist, who also forged deep connections between the art scenes of New York and California. Despite her leading role, Antin’s work has often been overlooked. This retrospective seeks to restore her rightful place in art history and highlight the extent of her influence on contemporary artists.

The exhibition explores the many facets of Antin’s practice in five thematic sections. The first, “100 Boots,” showcases her iconic mail art project, questioning distribution processes within the art market. The second, “Eight New York Women,” celebrates the women around Antin and demonstrates her connections with feminist and literary circles of the 1970s. The following sections delve into her exploration of fictional alter egos. With “The King,” Antin embodies a royal figure to deconstruct male power and social hierarchies, while “The Ballerinas” examines the physical and social pressures on the female body. Finally, “Nurse Eleanor” and “Yevgeny Antinov” immerse us in the artist’s history and autobiography through characters and narratives connected to her Jewish heritage and historical violence.

In the artist’s words: “I’m a passionate feminist and a feminist artist, but I am also a conceptual artist, a performance artist, a video artist. Remember those were the days when we were inventing the new world of art, liberating it from the standard painting-and-sculpture designations. And feminist artists were in the front lines.”

This retrospective will be accompanied by a catalogue—the most extensive publication about the artist to date. Eleanor Antin: A Retrospective offers a rare opportunity to rediscover the work of a creator who challenged the conventions of her time. In organising this exhibition, Mudam Luxembourg reaffirms its commitment to the promotion of the work of significant female artists who have often been overlooked, and to being a place for visionary artistic programming with global relevance.

Curators Bettina Steinbrügge, assisted by Clémentine Proby

Eleanor Antin: A Retrospective is organised by Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean with the collaboration of Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein.

Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein: March 27–September 27, 2026. Presentation curated by Christiane Meyer-Stoll

Design and scenography: Diogo Passarinho Studio, Berlin