Femininity 0.1

Groupshow

Maison Particulière

Brussels, Belgium

September 15 - December 17 2011

Installation view "the perfect woman is a lie".

To combine the bipolarity of man and woman, of zero and one, is to bring together elements, not in contradiction, but rather inseparable. This bipolarity altogether represents a unique trend of our society and the fundamental basis of our information system. The idea of femininity has evolved. It is intimately linked with the mutation of our communication system through the information and diffusion of the images of femininity.

Thus, to contemplate the idea of femininity along with zero and one, is to consider the core of the major information system of this century at stake with science and technology, as well as one of the main concern of our time: femininity between nature and culture, woman as an object and as a fighter, between gender identity confusion and well assumed femininity by men or women.

Femininity 0.1 is an attempt to tackle the contradictions and correspondences of our time, and thus to provoke fundamental questions upon our identity.

Femininity can neither be summarized in one artexhibit nor by a few visions, as rich as they already are shown here.

0.1 is the promise and the first screen of a series of explorations that Maison Particulière proposes to develop throughout the following years.

Maison Particulière invited for its second artexhibit Renaud Bergonzo, Joaquin Pecci, Alain Servais, Oda Jaune, a young lady artist whose universe fascinates us and, Victor Ginsburgh, once more, found some interesting reflections between artworks andlitterature’s extracts. Artcollectors, an artist and a professor emeritus joined us to present their personnal visions on this fascinating and wide-ranging subject.

Renaud Bergonzo, French artcollector and associate of the Paris’ artgallery Acte2, has approached Femininity with its original notion to confront it with our «feminising?» world: «As the vision of femininity evolves, throughout times and the filter eyes of the artists, this notion takes a variety of outlines, going from the image of the «Foster-mother» endowed with reassuring and generous shapes to the images of fantasized women whose links with reality have largely faded due to the miracles of Photoshop©, when the scalpel is not to be found guilty...»

Oda Jaune, young lady artist, has enabled us to penetrate into her inner world, her pictorial work, «In my work, the transformation of forms into each other conjures up the principle of femininity. This principle is profoundly imbedded in the process of the creation of my artworks; it is intimately linked to pain, the sliding into unconsciousness… and definitely to the unspeakable!»

Joaquin Pecci, as a professional expert in primitive art, has looked at the ever-idealized image of the feminine characteristics in an exceptional series of African sculptures, to him this a «tribute paid to vital and motherly woman, (it) reminds us of her predominant role in the heart of yesterday’s as well as today’s societies, the eternal object of desire or fantasy, she illustrates the mystery of life, both magic and fascinating».

Alain Servais, Belgian artcollector, as reflected by his own collection truly involved in today’s problematic, has put into perspective «femininity» with the essential question of the position of Man in the Evolution since the dawn of times, therefor raising awareness on issues such as Nature and Culture. Thus he brings the main subject on this question, the «perversion» of Femininity in works of art, most of the time created by women artists, thru strong images, often deviant, which enable us to ask ourselves who we «REAL-ly» are.

Last but not least, Victor Ginsburgh, has again joined us. He offers us a distinct way of looking at the artworks he chose from Femininity 0.1’s exhibit. And, thanks to his erudite and cultured choices of poetical and philosophical, sensual and provocative texts, they help us question ourselves and dream away. His literary journey takes us from Apollinaire to Emily Brontë, from Paul Éluard to Vladimir Nabokov.

On our side, we have chosen to show a series of works of art that illustrate the emotions and feelings which have touched, troubled and questioned us, more particularly thru sensuality and beauty, mystery and provocation, sense of humor and mockery, violence and intelligence. But, it is also for us the opportunity to arouse questions and to be able to go further off, to incorporate a political vision to an aesthetic vision around the contemporary notion of Femininity in which, sometimes still, violence, aesthetical as well as psychological, play a major part.

Myriam and Amaury de Solages

Ghada Amer, Nobuyoshi Araki, Ludovic Avenel, Hans Bellmer, Francois Boucher, Giulia Caira, Saint Clair Cemin, Xooang Choi, Michel Comte, Nicola Costantino, Shirin Fakhim, Jean-Paul Goude, Gauthier Hubert, Melissa Ichiuji, Oda Jaune, Susanne Junker, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Longo, Alexandra Leyre Mein, Marilyn Minter, Mondongo, Rasmus Mogensen, Musco Angelo, Philippe Pasqua, Rankin, Renoir, Natalie Rich, Alain Sechas, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, John Stewart, Nicole Tran Ba Vang, Sabine Villiard, Ellen Von Unwerth, Albert Watson, Joel Peter Witkin.