Petah Coyne: How Much A Heart Can Hold
Upcoming: Spring 2026
Petah Coyne: How Much A Heart Can Hold marks the museum debut of several new works by sculptor Petah Coyne and is both a multi-decade exploration of her career and an ode to women’s complexity and creativity.
In her complex, detailed, fantastical sculpture Coyne often celebrates under-recognized female authors and Eastern literary figures. Her works rise from 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, 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.
The exhibition’s three sections—“Women’s Work,” “Women Obscured and Transformed” and “Women’s Relationships”—present a broad view of Petah Coyne’s artistic practice while honoring the literature and the literary figures 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has ever measured, even the poets, how much a heart can hold,” the American writer, dancer, and painter wrote in an unpublished manuscript.
Petah Coyne: How Much the Heart Can Hold is organized by the Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison. The exhibition was made possible in part by support from The Anonymous Fund and the Joen Greenwood Fund. Additional generous support for the catalogue comes from Stephen and Pamela Hootkin.
Read about the show in this article from Colossal