Voeux Sous Fillet
1997
The work is displayed as part of the permanent exhibition
Sculpture/ 3D object
Black and white photographs, net
300 × 115 cm
Presented as part of the D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift
Annette Messager’s work (1943, Berck-sur-Mer, France) focuses on themes of identity, gender and childhood as well as existential issues, often in a fetishistic manner. She explores sex, love, beauty, pain, yearning, power, always through the eyes of a woman. Her work includes drawings, photographs, embroidery, collages, sculpture and installation. Intricately arranged collections and accumulations of photographs, stuffed animals and their limbs are characteristic of her practice; as are materials such as wool yarn, synthetic hair, etc., which she reconfigures into complex, striking compositions. Whether through satire or caricature, and with materials drawn from everyday life, the message underlying her work is clear: to free women from the roles assigned to them by men and by society.
Her work, Mes voeux sous filet (1997) is inspired by the ritual offerings left beside altars in Roman Catholic churches, often in gratitude for answered prayers. Evoking these so-called ex-votos, dozens of small photographs of body parts, including breasts and genitals but also arms, legs, tongues and ears are hung from an array of black cords and veiled by a black net. Messager conceives of a female, intimate universe that alludes to the paradoxical and fragmentary nature of identity.
Annette Messager was born in Berck-sur-Mer, France. She lives and works in Malakoff, a suburb of Paris. She is considered one of the most important contemporary artists worldwide. She has held numerous exhibitions at major cultural institutions and events around the world (selection): Venice Biennale (2005, 2003, and 1980); documenta (XI, 2002 and VI, 1977); Lyon Biennale (2000); Paris Biennale (1997); and Sydney Biennale (1990, 1984, and 1979). The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and MoMA in New York co-organised her first major retrospective in 1995, while in 2007 another major retrospective of her work was organised by the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Recently, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art presented a major exhibition of her work in 2022, and she has also exhibited at the Institut Giacometti in Paris (2018), the Institut Valencià Art Modern - IVAM (2018), and the Villa Medici in Rome (2017). Annette Messager was awarded the Praemium Imperiale for sculpture, in 2016. She won the Golden Lion for best national pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale, in 2005.