French artist examines art in all its facets

Annette Messager's first major solo exhibition in China, "Desire/Disorder," has opened at Shanghai's Power Station of Art.

The exhibition, which runs until October 8, 2024, provides an in-depth look at the French artist's multidimensional art practice, featuring over 70 pieces in numerous media, including drawings, photographs, sculptures, and installations, highlighting her prodigious career spanning five decades.

Messager's work is celebrated for its evocative use of everyday objects and its in-depth examination of issues like identity, memory, gender, and the human condition. She seamlessly combines feminist views and surrealist techniques, converting everyday materials into assemblages that transcend reality and elicit deep emotional responses.

A significant aspect of Messager's work involves photographs of human body parts.

In her installation "In Balance/In Weighing," wool threads and ropes suspend 87 black and white framed photographs of various body parts from the ceiling, creating a dense, interconnected web.

The photographs include diverse parts such as mouths, ears, feet, and hands, highlighting both the unity and disunity of the human form.

This method of presentation probably emphasizes the fragmentation of identity and the intimate, often hidden aspects of the human body.

Messager's installations frequently feature plush toys as well. These toys are more than just childhood artifacts; they are used to create feelings of nostalgia and vulnerability.

For example, in her piece "12 Little Effigies," she juxtaposes miniature soft toys with framed pictures of body parts, producing an unnerving yet tender contrast. These pieces frequently explore themes of innocence and macabre, combining the familiar with the uncanny.

Messager was born in a seaside hamlet in France's Calais region, where fishermen used nets on the broad beaches, leaving an indelible impression on her upbringing. This influence may be seen throughout her work, with fishing net materials prominently shown in many of her installations.

In this exhibition, nets serve as evocative conveyors of memories from her hometown, echoing the bright and dynamic landscapes she remembers. The nets, which are strewn throughout the exhibition area, encourage viewers to pause and ponder on the relationship between past and present, memory and creativity.

In Messager's "My Vows under Net 5 Columns," the netting is a crucial element that adds layers of meaning and complexity to the artwork. It visually disrupts and partially obscures the framed photographs and texts beneath, engaging viewers more deeply as they attempt to see through the barrier.

Symbolically, the nets represent both protection and entrapment, reflecting the tension between safeguarding intimate aspects of oneself and the restrictions imposed by such protection.

This interplay emphasizes themes of visibility, secrecy, and the delicate balance between revealing and concealing personal vows and memories. The nets thus enrich the artwork's exploration of personal and societal boundaries.

Words and text also play a crucial role in Messager's art. She often includes handwritten notes, printed texts, and embroidered phrases in her pieces. These texts can be playful, poetic, or provocative, adding layers of meaning and encouraging viewers to engage more deeply with the work.

Messager sees writing as a visual medium, with words having visual power. Printing and repeating a word on a wall transforms it into an image, retaining its ability to convey sound and emotion.

In the pieces "A/pparition" and "Comedy-Tragedy," she uses words with personal meaning, such as Temptation, Hapy (deliberately misspelled), Tragedy-Comedy, Memory-Robots, Chaos, Crisis, and Icon, to reflect both her emotional landscape and her commentary on the status of the world.

The artist often incorporates clothes into her artwork, using them as a powerful symbol to explore identity and memory. In her installations, clothes often appear as stand-ins for the human body, suggesting presence in absence and evoking personal histories and memories.

This motif resonates with wider themes that explore the shaping, covering, revealing, and transformation of identity, mirroring the influence of clothing on one's appearance and perception.

In the work "The Story of the Dresses," dresses are housed in wooden rectangular display cases, creating an air of mystery and personal significance. These cases, filled with dresses and decorated with drawings, black-and-white photographs, and writings, evoke the essence of relics or amulets.

The presentation hints at the missing figures once associated with these garments, stirring a sense of loss and the lingering presence of an absent body. Messager likens the display cases to something between a fairy-tale container for a sleeping princess and a casket, suggesting both enchantment and entrapment of desires now unreachable.

By using clothes as a central element, Messager invites viewers to contemplate the roles and meanings that garments hold in our lives — ranging from the mundane to the ceremonial.

The exhibition's centerpiece, "Casino," an immersive installation inspired by the Italian literary classic "The Adventure of Pinocchio," won the Golden Lion at the 51st Venice Biennale.

A captivating tableau draws visitors in, featuring a sea of red silk undulating like a billowing sea or a living creature, puppet heads rising and falling, and a clock running backward, symbolizing the unending passage of time.

This massive blood-red flood unifies various themes, including menstruation, childbirth, the violence of creation, and the transition into life.

It also delves into the justifications for deception, mischief, escape, and disobedience, with the puppet hero representing rebellious individuality and acting as a symbolic counterpart to the artist.

If you go:

Date: through October 8

Venue: Power Station of Art

Address: 678 Miaojiang Road

Admission: 60 yuan