At the origin of the idea of the partnership between FRAC and SNCF Gares & Connexions by end 2011, giving birth to this event celebrating 30 years of FRAC in 30 stations in 2013, entreprisecontemporaine® is also at the origin of the choice, in close collaboration with FRACs, of some fifteen works shown at stations, with highlights such as Alain Bublex in Montpellier (production with Vinci Construction France) and Franck Scurti in Toulouse (mediation with Laboratoires Pierre Fabre).
Here is one of them :
Marylène Négro, Eux/Them, Perpignan station, Summer 2013
© Marylène Négro and FRAC LR
© photo entreprisecontemporaine 2013
First look
In these 5 portraits of mannequins for shop windows, from a series of 168 photographs, the faces are hard, smooth and without defects, devoid of any expression. Fixed to the viewer, their empty eyes look at us from the most obsessive manner.
Second look
It is through the window of the shops that the artist has captured these portraits, framed as close as possible. Imprisoned in their showcase, these “plastic clones” reverse the viewer’s to viewed relationship. The discomfort then arises from the artificiality of their appearance, which can only refer to that of this “dictatorship of beauty” advocated by our contemporary media.
Look at history
The dream of a perfect beauty haunts the painters for a long time : Ingres, in the nineteenth century, does not hesitate to lengthen, distort, dislocate the beautiful ones of these paintings, to make them more striking. In his portrait of Madame Moitessier (1856, London, National Gallery) he does not hesitate to place in a mirror the reflection of an antique sculpture, suggesting that the work is an artifice and not the nature itself.
Look at the society
The Swedish TV series Real Humans recently broadcasted by Arte projects us in the near future where we would all have our HuBots (for Human Robots), referring us to this image of another ideal, humanized articulated mannequin to be mistaken, enslaved to our least needs, our least desires. Dream or futuristic nightmare ?
Marylène Négro
Born in 1957 in Tronche (Rhône-Alpes), lives and works in Paris. Marylène Negro is interested in our ability to create a bond in a world where our virtual lives interfere more and more in our real lives.