Voices from History

In 1998, the American artist Nancy Spero created several installations in and around the Festspielhaus Hellerau. By a stroke of luck, her installation in the Seitenstudio – now known as the Nancy Spero Room – has been preserved. To mark the 100th anniversary of Spero’s birth (26 August 2026), we invite you to a special encounter with her work. In a two-hour guided tour, art historian Susanne Altmann – a long-time companion and expert on Spero’s work – will provide insights into her life and career. Together with Wanda (Claudia) Reichardt, the Dresden-based curator invited Nancy Spero and her husband, the painter Leon Golub, to Dresden at the time. 
As a pioneer of feminist art, Nancy Spero’s voice still carries enormous weight today. She expressed her committed, often political imagery using an innovative printing technique that employed stencils and stamps. From around 1974 onwards, she used exclusively female figures from all eras of cultural history. Discover Nancy Speros’s visual statements against war, violence and oppression up close and learn more about the artist’s role at the intersection of performance, the avant-garde and feminist practice. 

We are also showing an exclusive screening of the approximately 20-minute documentary “Rhythm of Time” (2001), which Susanne Altmann (together with Regine Hempel) filmed in HELLERAU, and New York. This film focuses not only on the development of the project at the Festspielhaus, but also on the lifelong collaboration between the artist couple Nancy Spero and Leon Golub (1922–2004).

Important information:

• Cost: €20 per person, €13.50 reduced rate for students and school pupils