Petah Coyne

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Petah Coyne/photo by Christopher Burke Studio

"Untitled #1379 (The Doctor's Wife)," a sculpture by Petah Coyne.

"Untitled #1379 (The Doctor's Wife)," a sculpture by Petah Coyne.

“How Much a Heart Can Hold” showcases sculptor-photographer Petah Coyne’s work, some never before exhibited, focusing on the lives of women. Her large sculptures, made from such materials as cloth, human hair, scrap metal, wax, silk flowers and other found materials, sometimes hang from the ceiling. “Coyne looks at the woman as a heroine, cultural leader, dissident and activist,” says Amy Gilman, director of the Chazen Museum of Art and exhibition curator, “and as a fellow creative who seeks to transform the deep aspects of consciousness and societal awareness.” Coyne will be in conversation with Gilman at an opening celebration Sept. 19.

media release: Experience sprawling sculptural works made of cloth, human hair, scrap metal, wax, silk flowers and other unorthodox materials in Petah Coyne: How Much A Heart Can Hold, on view Sept. 9-Dec. 23 at the Chazen Museum of Art.

Reception 5-8 pm, Sept. 19: Join us for an unforgettable evening celebrating the artistry of Petah Coyne at the Chazen Museum of Art. This celebration promises an engaging blend of art, conversation, and music.

The event kicks off at 5 p.m. with a captivating discussion in the Chazen Auditorium between renowned artist, Petah Coyne and Director of the Chazen Museum of Art, Amy Gilman. This conversation offers insights into the inspiration and creative process behind Petah Coyne’s extraordinary exhibition.

Following the discussion, guests are invited to continue the celebration at a reception in the Chazen Lobby. Enjoy the melodic tunes of pianist Jim Erickson as you explore Petah Coyne’s evocative artworks in the Rowland Gallery. Hosted appetizers will be served, complemented by a cash bar.

The event is free and open to the public. RSVPs are encouraged but not required.

“How Much A Heart Can Hold” marks the museum debut of several new works by Petah Coyne and serves as both a multi-decade exploration of her career and an ode to women’s complexity and creativity. Coyne often celebrates under-recognized female authors and Eastern literary figures. Her works showcase the writers and characters; dissect their complex stories; and examine how relationships, social constructs and self-image can shape how women — real and fictional — experience and navigate the world. The exhibition features sprawling sculptural works made of cloth, human hair, scrap metal, wax, silk flowers and other unorthodox materials. Visitors will also see “The Real Guerrillas: The Early Years.” The project is an ongoing collaboration with artist Kathy Grove to photograph the Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous artist activist group that formed in New York in 1985 to expose gender and ethnic bias in art and culture.

“How Much A Heart Can Hold” has three sections — “Women’s Work,” “Women Obscured and Transformed” and “Women’s Relationships” — that present a broad view of Petah Coyne’s artistic practice while honoring the literary contributors she loves. A line by Zelda Fitzgerald inspired the exhibition title. “Nobody has ever measured, even the poets, how much a heart can hold,” the American writer, dancer and painter wrote in an unpublished manuscript.

Coyne’s “Untitled #1378 (Zelda Fitzgerald),” a sculpture named in Fitzgerald’s honor, anchors the exhibition. At nearly 7 feet tall, the mixed media work from the Chazen’s collection is made of silk flowers, wax, acrylic paint, white pearl-headed hat pins, artificial pearls, cast-wax statuary figure and hand sculptures, ribbon, knitting needles, fabric, thread, wire, horsehair, drywall, plaster, filament, rubber, steel and wood. A transparent glass box around the monochromatic work represents a cage that is a metaphor for Fitzgerald’s accomplishments that were thwarted by the time in which she lived and overshadowed by her marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Works such as “Untitled #1379 (The Doctor’s Wife)” (1997-2018) transport visitors back in time and acquaint them with lesser-known stories. The installation of folded hand-sewn Venetian velvet in inky blues, blacks and teal stretches more than 16 feet and is named after Sawako Ariyoshi’s novel. The work recalls the true story of Japanese surgeon Hanaoka Seishū and the competition between his wife and mother as they wrestled with their roles in the house and in society in late-18th-century Japan.

“Untitled #720 (Eguchi’s Ghost)” (1992/2007) presents one of Coyne’s most unique uses of materials. The sculpture inspired by Yasunari Kawabata’s “The House of the Sleeping Beauties” hangs from the ceiling and is made from, among many other things, a 1950s Airstream trailer that has been shredded into thin stainless-steel wire. It also includes brass wire, phosphorus wire, steel wire, chicken-wire fencing, cable, cable nuts, PVC pipe, PVC sockets, PVC socket elbows, plastic, paper towels, silk Duchesse satin, thread, Velcro, jaw-to-jaw shackles, quick link shackles and 3/8” grade 30 proof coil chain.

“The Real Guerrillas: The Early Years,” Coyne’s ongoing collaboration with contemporary artist Kathy Grove, introduces 12 of the more than 50 women who were members of the Guerrilla Girls between 1985 and 2000. The unfinished project features paired photographs of the elusive feminists — one masked and costumed and another that reveals their identity and their work, but only after that member passes away.

Petah Coyne employs an amalgamation of materials in innovative ways and aims to push them as far as she can. A lover of objects, she gathers materials from everywhere and wrestles with them until they come together perfectly. The results are towering works made of everything from dead fish, mud, sticks, hay, black sand, satin ribbons and taxidermy to chicken wire, shackles, horsehair, drywall, hospital bandages, crickets, chandeliers, trees, religious statues, jaw-to-jaw shackles, thread, aluminum and steel piping, specially formulated wax, orchids, velvets, satin silks, feathers, human hair, coral, cement and anything else available. Coyne forgoes drawings, mockups and other preplanning and builds her sculptures without consideration of size. Some sculptures narrowly fit through the doorway of her studio after she heeds warnings from her assistants who alert her once a sculpture approaches 70 inches in one direction.

Petah Coyne reads two to three books per week and draws much of her inspiration from woman authors. Because she has dyslexia, she often processes those stories differently and imagines the interesting conversations characters from different books would have with one another. Oftentimes, Coyne creates the resulting artworks to hang from the ceiling instead of stand from the floor — a practice she notes may be a product of her dyslexia. Although she has her own ideas about her finished works, she wants viewers to experience her art in the same way she approaches creating it — with an open heart.

“We looked across Petah Coyne’s long career and were inspired to focus on the creative work of women as interpreted through Coyne’s artistic process. Coyne looks at the woman as a heroine, cultural leader, dissident and activist and as a fellow creative who seeks to transform the deep aspects of consciousness and societal awareness.” —Amy Gilman, Chazen Museum of Art director and exhibition curator

“I hope they open up their hearts and just look at the pieces. It doesn’t matter what I feel about the work or what I made it for. If you just open yourself up, you’ll feel something and that would be the most wonderful thing.” —Petah Coyne

About the artist: Petah Coyne’s artistic inspiration is rooted in her childhood. Born in Oklahoma City in 1953, Coyne’s military family allowed her to delve deeply into other cultures through travel and study, with a particular interest in Japan and China. Her mom often encouraged her to create stories about things she observed. 

Earlier this year, Coyne received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center. In November, she will be honored by the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Additional awards include those from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, three from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Asian Cultural Council, New York Foundation for the Arts, Anonymous Was A Woman, the Saint-Gaudens Fellowship, three from Artists Space, the Art Matters Award, two International Association of Art Critics awards and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art Award in the Visual Arts.

Coyne has been the subject of more than 30 solo museum exhibitions and her work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco), the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (Madison, Wisconsin) and many others.

She currently lives and works in New York City and West New York, NJ.

Curator: “Petah Coyne: How Much A Heart Can Hold” is curated by Amy Gilman, director of the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Organizer: “Petah Coyne: How Much A Heart Can Hold” is organized by the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. 

Tour: “Petah Coyne: How Much A Heart Can Hold” will travel to the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York (Feb. 26-July 6, 2025) and the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami (Sept. 18-March 15, 2026). 

Support: “Petah Coyne: How Much A Heart Can Hold” was made possible in part by support from The Anonymous Fund and the Joen Greenwood Fund for the Chazen. Additional generous support for the catalogue comes from Stephen and Pamela Hootkin.

Event information: www.chazen.wisc.edu/events/