‘À Gisèle’, the artwork exhibition to honor the raped girl who didn’t need to disguise | Culture | EUROtoday

The Travesía Cuatro gallery in Madrid hosts the exhibition till January 17 To Gisèle. Its curator, Laura López Paniagua, has introduced collectively 4 artists from completely different generations and international locations to pay tribute to the survivor who didn’t enable herself to be victimized. It is, within the phrases of López Paniagua, “a dedication in an intimate sense: an act of deep attention, a respectful desire for closeness, and the attempt to unfold a landscape where the experience of the inconceivable can begin to form, even if it is in a tentative and unfinished way, without being reduced to a single story.” The works of Armineh Negahdari, La Chola Poblete, Kiki Smith and Maya Pita Romero maintain ambiguity and switch the gallery into a spot of dialogue.

“Let shame change its way,” mentioned Gisèle Pelicot when renouncing her proper to anonymity that protects victims of sexual violence in France. This assertion – ​​now a motto – is without doubt one of the many the explanation why Pelicot can be remembered. She devoted her battle to these like her who had suffered some sort of sexual violence: “Victims, look around you: you are not alone.” The picture of Gisèle Pelicot is the picture of dignity. If it had not been proven accurately and firmly, what would come to thoughts when remembering this case can be one thing else: the identical physique in a unique posture. Her husband drugged her, raped her and invited different males to do the identical. She denounced her attackers with out changing into the weak physique that they had abused.

If Gisèle Pelicot had not proven as much as the trial every single day along with her face uncovered, if she had not requested a public listening to the place the photographs of what she skilled might be seen within the framework of a court docket of justice, the picture of this crime would have been determined by her torturer, who recorded the crimes.

The sculptures of Maya Pita-Romero (Madrid, 26 years previous), the one ones particularly commissioned for this exhibition, additionally impose new photographs of the physique. They evoke tongues, throats or cavities that oscillate between the erotic, the visceral and the disturbing. They are located within the realm of the liminal. It shouldn’t be identified if they’re inside or outdoors. Pita-Romero, who has been awarded the 2026 Young Artist Award from Casa Encendida, has used supplies inherited from her feminine lineage and recycled plastics; The home evokes heat, but in addition the abject.

Something related occurs with the proposal of La Chola Poblete (Guaymallén, Argentina, 37 years previous). Trans artist and browntransfers political sensitivity to his work from the expertise of his flesh. Like Gisèle Pelicot, she has created a picture of herself. She seems publicly along with her braid, her aguayo and the indigenous diva gesture that defines her. It is affirmed, as López Paniagua explains, “against the mechanisms of exclusion that mark racialized, feminized, different bodies.” Like Gisèle, she additionally shouts: “Shame is no longer mine.”

The work Venus, cracked brown (2023) travels past the character to the place the place, maybe, Gisèle herself is now away from the highlight. The public determine rests and the girl discreetly settles into the maiden title she has determined to make use of. A 73-year-old girl who seems with new eyes at her personal physique to combine it, to eat it, if you’ll, as La Chola may eat her sculpture manufactured from bread. An appetizing however wounded work, mendacity face up, with a torn stomach, providing its organs or the battered offspring of a violent and colonial previous.

Gisèle Pelicot uncovered the social hypocrisy of the non-public sphere, the place symbolic, affective and relational configurations proceed to maintain the violence of patriarchy. As seen within the RTVE documentary My husband raped Gisèle Pelicot —which incorporates the testimonies of seven girls, kinfolk of among the convicted, this case reveals a a lot bigger social cyst than is acknowledged. It requires the necessity for an open dialogue to reinvent the social contract, which can’t depend on the outdated silent pact based mostly on the sexual subordination of girls.

The assortment of drawings on show by the Iranian artist dwelling in France Armineh Negahdari (Tehran, 31 years previous) appears to emerge from a legendary place previous to language from the place one can start to think about one thing new. It is unimaginable to not interpret the graphite on the paper as a scream, particularly in gentle of the occasions going down in his native nation. Finding these jobs in Madrid reveals our widespread roots.

Finally, within the drawing-sculpture panels on paper and cloth by Kiki Smith (Nuremberg, 72 years previous) the feminine physique is acknowledged, however the fascinating physicality of the supplies finally ends up imposing itself as a dwelling object in itself. Thus the physique turns into unusual and provides one other push to start out considering.

None of the works chosen for this exhibition {photograph} nicely. For this tribute it’s vital to maneuver, be current, return to the agora, as curator Laura López Paniagua invitations us to do.