Artist: Fabienne Audéoud
Exhibition title: I Am Not A Woman
Venue: Cocotte, Treignac, France
Date: March 25 – April 30, 2023
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Sundy, London
It might be an opera thing as I find your work always has a declamatory element to it, or at least a declaratory one, in the titles your choose or the sentences you paint, such as “I Am Not A Woman”, “No To Crucifixions”, “Mohamed I Love You”… They are not cryptic statements. Yes but my work is never a demonstration of knowledge. Titles are a space within language where I can express a problem, one that I have rather than one that I’d pinpoint in others. It is not a lesson to be delivered but what I am actually struggling with. An unresolved tension. Not being a woman is my current problem, writing it is putting myself and whoever reads it in jeopardy. A claim arising from years of questioning gender issues, and a strong sense of saturation with the omnipresence and omnipotence of the male gaze. I’ve always felt deficient as a woman, now it’s obvious I don’t belong to this category. I’m not interested in re-constructing after de-constructing. I’m out. I created a series of images with Artbreeder, an Artificial Intelligence software allowing you to create avatars (amongst other things) by mixing facials elements such as Age, Gender, Asian, Indian, Black, White, Art, Red, Sharpness, Happy, Angry, Blue Eye, Earrings, Mouth Open, Black Hair, Blonde Hair, Brown Hair, Makeup, Glasses, Facial Hair, Hat. I pushed some of the data to saturation. One can figure out they are portraits, but they have lost their features and organs to bright coloured intensities. The software’s name refers to the idea of reproduction and breeding. Next to these saturated faces stands a horde of small shop mannequins whose heads have been covered with colourful patches. Like for my previous series “Perfumes For The Poor”, they come from Barbès, my Parisian neighbourhood. I often watch them in the windows of their ceremony shops (where it seems the three monotheisms meet). I am fascinated by the excess of fake pearls and false diamonds. I actually have this fantasy of installing such a shop window in a contemporary art fair. But I do not wish to reclaim or critically reproduce this imagery. That’s why I chose the little guys in three-piece suits. Their costume is that of businessmen, power, knowledge and competence. They’re also what I usually wear for my voice performances. As for me, what jumped to mind is the animation film The Boss Baby, where a baby is born a boss, suit and case included. He pretends to be a baby with his parents, but when alone in his room he gives phone calls and orders things around. He is already very skilled and very scary. Yes and the small shop mannequins wear trainers, they can run, they are cool, they compete. Unlike your little “Stuffed Wolves” with their begging eyes, they don’t have a face to interact with. They are Body Snatchers! An impending little-big-replacement. I was thinking about the notions of regression, or decrease but it seems we’ve rather been talking about impediment or issues around qualification, both as in ‘skills’ and as in ‘characterisation’. Not having the right tools or not being able to use them properly, taking oneself out of a category or a group, being stuck on the meaning of some utterances… You seem to be at the same time subjected to and claiming literality. Yes and the work I do is the staging of my deficiencies, including thinking that sentences say what they say. And I’m currently wearing the trousers of a man suit – which look really good on me and this is an issue. What on earth am I doing in a CEO suit?
Elsa Vettier, after a conversation with Fabienne Audeoud Mars 2023
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
Fabienne Audéoud, I Am Not A Woman, 2023, exhibition view, Cocotte, Treignac
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