Patricia Cronin: Army of Love

5 September - 18 October 2025

Overview

CHART is honored to present Army of Love by Patricia Cronin. This exhibition marks the celebrated artist’s first solo exhibition in New York in nearly a decade. Featuring new paintings, sculptures, and watercolors, the exhibition forms a monumental installation inspired by the mythological figure of Aphrodite—the ancient goddess of love—reframing her legacy through a contemporary feminist lens. Army of Love will be on view from September 5 through October 18, 2025, with an opening reception on September 5, from 6 to 8 PM.

The 1969 profound discovery of a sacred temple in Knidos, Turkey by archaeologist Iris Love is the source of Cronin’s imagery and aesthetic choices. It once held a cult statue of the first monumental female nude — Praxiteles' Knidian Aphrodite (350 b.c.e.), since lost — which influenced every image of the goddess that was created and disseminated throughout the ancient world, many of them residing today in museums globally. Drawing art historical references from Praxiteles to Arte Povera, Cronin crafts two dimensional ethereal “sentinels” from materials such as oil, bleach, salt, marble paper and tarps. These evoke classical archetypes reimagined for today as they sometimes flutter and float free of their supports, dissolving boundaries between public and private, past and present. Centering female power, Army of Love challenges conventional ideas of heroism, replacing conquest with compassion, and reframing the idea of an “army” as a collective force for love, dignity, and care.

For over three decades, Cronin has created conceptually driven, genre defying, materially rich works that reinterpret art historical iconography through feminist and queer perspectives that examine gender, power, and memory. Cronin’s Army of Love continues her ongoing engagement with the classical world, building upon the foundation of her acclaimed 2018–19 exhibition Aphrodite and the Lure of Antiquity at the Tampa Museum of Art.

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