Earlier generations of women, especially feminists, often linked their tribulations to childbearing and rearing; today, low birthrates throughout Western Europe have put children back on the political agenda in a different light. Yet despite the sweeping transformation in both attitudes and statistics, the theme of having and raising a family has hardly registered on the radar of contemporary art. The relative silence on the topic among artists born in the late ’60s and the ’70s—after the advent of the birth-control pill and in the prime of the women’s liberation movement—is striking, as the

Two concurrent exhibitions at Galerie Daniel Buchholz recently offered an unusual contrast: Large-format paintings by the American artist Tony Conrad were hung in the gallery’s old space, while the new one housed small-format paintings by the London-based German artist Tomma Abts. At first glance, the contrast couldn’t be greater: Conrad’s pictures were created in 1973, Abts’s in 2006; the older paintings are the work of a filmmaker and musician, the new ones, of a dedicated painter; his paintings are enormous, hers are always the same modest format, 18 7⁄8 x 15 inches. Despite these differences,