To be Venus
March 20th - May 16th 2015
Collective exhibition
Venus is the most timeless figure associated with the feminine beauty. This character from the Greco-Roman mythology, outside of the religious yokes and the maternal imagery, allowed the first representations of the carnal woman: the beauty for the beauty, without interference of preestablished societal roles.
This is why Boticelli’s « Birth of Venus » or Milo's Venus have come to us as the bearer of obvious and universally accepted canons of beauty.
The " to be Venus " exhibition, at the Géraldine Banier gallery, explores the idea of the current canons of beauty: what is our Venus of today, the image of our femininity that will cross ages?
We are reaching the tangible limit of the deification of the everyday life and the common acceptance of the goddess model where the roles are reversed. Venus is not anymore a concentrate of unreachable beauty but is now seen more like a goal that every woman tries to achieve.
Eight artists working around the feminine identity shape the myth and its links with the current society: fetishism, diversion, exploration of transgender or margins.
The delicate feathers of the Laurence Le Constant’s work invade a pair of hight-heeled shoes, finishing the fetishization of one of the most symbolic feminine accessories of seduction. In the work " birth candy " by Joachim Biehler, a small sculpture of the Botticelli’s Venus emerges from an industrial candies heap, highlighting the hypocrisy of the perfection of the small statuette assailed by the stream of the consumer society." The Queen of Amazons " by Francesca Gagliardi is primitive and mystic and glorifies the feminine mystery and the long-desired return to basics.
Venus suddently appears like a woman made of flesh and bone; the goddess became very fragile, or maybe was she always like that …