«Mastectomy Mameria» (2019) by Charlotte Colbert
In the Venetian Palazzo Franchetti, around thirty works from various eras are selected by the curator Carolina Pasti with the aim of promoting awareness of breast cancer to a wider audience.
We start from the iconography of the Madonna del latte, we pass through Duchamp, with his «Priere de toucher», please touch (a breast in foam rubber on the cover of the book Le Surréalisme en 1947), to arrive at contemporary works. All selected based on the theme, the breast, around which the «Breasts» exhibition curated by Carolina Pasti takes place, created with the non-profit organization Contemporis Ets, which can be visited at Palazzo Franchetti in Venice from 18 April to 24 November. A theme addressed over the centuries and by different authors, around thirty historicized and emerging, with different slant, between motherhood, eros and illness: «a theme that proves to be a catalyst, writes the curator, to discuss socio-political realities, challenge the historical traditions and express personal and collective identities. The mission is to promote breast cancer awareness to a wider audience through the channel of art." There is also the work of those who, like Prune Nourry, have experienced breast cancer.
If in the first room the journey begins with a historical approach with the Renaissance masters, who inspired artists such as Cindy Sherman, Richard Dupont, Teniqua Clementine Crawford and Sherrie Levine, in the second we enter the 20th century with the sculptural works, from Duchamp, a Claude Lalanne and Allen Jones. Photography is the medium of the third room, from the surrealist photography of Robert Mapplethorpe and Irving Penn to digital media, «to explore symbolic and unconventional representations», adds Pasti. In commercial use and fashion photography we find Oliviero Toscani among those who have subverted the traditional canons of advertising. «Tetrarch» by Christopher Bucklow, tells the story of Claudia Schiffer's body. using the pinhole photographic technique, «Untitled (2 girls)» by Lakin Ogunbanwo is inspired by models in Nigeria.
The works of the artists in the fourth room, including Chloe Wise, Louise Bourgeois, Aurora Pellizzi, Charlotte Colbert, Laura Panno. The exhibition closes with Laure Prouvost's fifteen-minute film entitled «Four For See Beauties», from 2022: the protagonists are three women and the artist's newborn baby together with a series of sea creatures that recall the phases of the transformation of human life. 30 percent of the proceeds from the catalog will go to finance the Monzino European Oncological Institute Foundation and its research.
Carolina Pasti