While reproductive rights have been a prevalent theme in contemporary art for many years, instances when the event of giving birth does not or cannot take place—such as infertility, abortions, and miscarriages—are placed outside of the discussion within dominantly heteronormative social conventions. In her new exhibition “Rites of Letting Go,” Hungarian artist Dorottya Vékony aims to bring these overlooked stories to light through ongoing research, participating in fertility rites, workshops, and talks while also sharing her way of engaging with questions of reproduction.

The exhibition opens with Tube, 2023, a semitranslucent silk curtain covered with enigmatic calligraphy that, on closer inspection, reveals itself to be small stick figures. Nearby, a group of black-and-white photographs titled Subtle Transformation Practices, 2020–, depicts groups of women adopting contorted, interlocking poses as they appear to perform fertility rituals. The photographs are printed on translucent glass and displayed under spotlights to produce a projected double-image on the gallery wall, enhancing the enigmatic nature of the postures. In the next room, the video Labyrinth 1., 2022, is screened on the floor, and shows two women navigating a maze—a metaphor for the cyclic nature and complexities of the reproductive process. In the series of interviews titled Conversations, 2022–23, women recall their traumas around losses related to childbirth and the support systems that helped them to survive.

In Fertility, 2020–21, the naked bodies from Subtle Transformation Practices are scaled up to nearly life size and placed into the gallery in modular, puzzle-like configurations that dissolve anatomy into abstracted compositions. Meanwhile, the final room features the site-specific installation, Cave, 2023, an all-encompassing, almost womb-like space. One enters through a curtain made of synthetic hair to face enlarged photographs of placentas covering the walls and amorphous ceramic sculptures referring to fertility rites, each fluidly molded form appearing to shapeshift between male and female reproductive organs. In the middle of the space, a birthing chair invites viewers to sit while listening to a guided meditation. At the exhibition’s exit, the dramaturgy loops the viewer back to Vékony’s own involvement with her subject. In Self-portrait, (family), 2023, the artist shows herself at last, as an intimate and humorous paraphrase of the impregnated Virgin Mary.

— Krisztián Gábor Török