TALA MADANI

The exhibition takes its starting point from Francis Picabia’s 1916 painting Fille née sans mère (Daughter Born Without a Mother), which plays on the classification of machines as female, reflecting how women and the female body have long been equated with mechanical parts. From here Madani traces a line, connecting the ruptures of fin-de-siècle modernism to the present, as A.I. becomes embedded in everyday life.

At the centre of the exhibition is Shit Mom, a faecal, shape-shifting figure designed to subvert ideals of motherhood, who reappears throughout Madani’s work. In a new series of paintings, Shit Mom engages with a robot A.I. ‘daughter’, the ‘daughter born without a Shit Mom’, acronymised in the exhibition’s title. Madani brings Shit Mom, who in her very essence stands in opposition to the pursuit of perfection, precision and desirability that defines A.I., into direct contact with these idealised robot daughters: touching, holding and mothering them.

Daughter B.W.A.S.M. is anchored by two new video works that draw on Eadweard Muybridge’s early motion studies. In S.M. Ascends (2025), Shit Mom is caught in an endless ascent of a staircase; each time she reaches the top, the scene resets and another found image of a staircase appears.

In a second animation, Shitmom Learning How to Walk (2025), Shit Mom is inserted into a sequence of Muybridge’s films. These early motion studies depict women actors in movement as they walk, carry objects and dance. Shit Mom joins Muybridge’s women, mimicking their gestures and learning from their poses. Sometimes despite her best efforts, she falters, collapses into a formless heap and leaves a trail of excrement in her wake.