Emmanuelle Villard — Artifici finti # 1 — Les filles du calvaire Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: November 25, 2011 → January 21, 2012

Entretien — Emmanuelle Villard Avec deux expositions organisées conjointement à l'abbaye de Maubuisson et à la galerie des Filles du calvaire, Emmanuelle Villard offre une plongée bicéphale au coeur de son œuvre.

Emmanuelle Villard’s work cannot be taken out of context or even outside of the artist’s own era. Her work is brimming with art history, problematic debates and pictorial references. But nevertheless it remains directly linked to how the artist perceives the society in which she evolves; that is, a divided society resting upon values of power, luxury and appearances and in which the quality of art work is gauged by its market value. This world promotes a ‘make believe’ attitude, but it also creates nostalgia; a notion that can lead to ambiguous views based on ideals of purity.

These paradoxes and controversies are tools the artist uses to shape her work. The ambivalence is revealed through the spectrum of seduction and revulsion. Her work originates from artefacts, devices and contrived objects: diamante, trashy jewellery and fake beads, sequins, distorting mirrors… All things that shine, glitter and sparkle and that catch the eye. In Emmanuelle Villard’s work, these devices are used to trick the audience: they enable the artist to showcase the emerging escalation of sharp travesty in a Duchampian satire. The artist creates works that are sometimes baroque, often decadent and always complex. Their perhaps overly shiny surfaces cast a deformed and cloudy image of ourselves and of the world around us: they invite us to reassess our perceptions.