“Me too.» A feminist slogan written in red was marked on the protective windows Genesis of the world lent by the Musée d’Orsay on the occasion of the “Lacan” exhibition, our colleagues from Lorraine Republican. According to our information, Action: Genitalpanik (1969-2001), the iconic work of VALIE EXPORT, a feminist actionist who shows herself in a leather jacket with a weapon in her hand, naked sex, was also degraded, as was the work of Louise Bourgeois and Rosemarie Trockel. Another work, a small embroidery with an inscription “I think I’m bad», from the series My collection of proverbs Annette Messager and dating back to the 70s, would also be removed.
The action was taken over by the performer Deborah De Robertis, with the complicity of several people. Still invited to the exhibition, “something she said she was very proud of» according to the curators of the exhibition, Bernard Marcadé and Marie-Laure Bernadac, who do not hide their “disappointment», De Robertis warned the press on April 14 with this message: “Soon I am preparing a performance in which I will condemn the abuses in the world of art that have been kept silent until now. I am writing to you because I am trying to find a trusted medium to express myself. I am famous especially for discovering my penis the origin of the world Courbet in 2014 (…). My performances pointed to the abuse of sexual power in the art world before #MeToo, without direct accusation, but today I want to speak out.
The exhibition features a video documenting a performance she performed in Orsay in 2014, presented not far from Gustave Courbet’s painting, an extremely famous painting that is now owned by the Musée d’Orsay after being hidden from view for a long time in Lacan’s country house. “The object of the voyeur’s gaze, the painting has become an object that looks at us» analyzed in Discharge exhibition curators. In the catalog published by Flammarion, a picture documenting the performance of De Robertis was published, opposite the vandalized work of VALIE EXPORT.
Turning the codes of the events of environmental activists, the gesture here is doubly short: what to think of an artist who attacks the works of other artists with whom she exhibits? What’s more when two of these works are signed by artists known for their feminist positioning throughout their career?
Update at 20:35 with the number of vandalized works and a photo of the action.