Alix Marie
Miroir Miroir, 2019
Prined scan son mirror and metal frame, 67 . 31,5 in, unique piece
© Alix Marie. Courtesy Ncontemporary.
Sucer La Nuit, 2019
Exhibition view at Musée Des Beaux Arts Le Locle. Photo credit: Samuel Zeller
© Alix Marie. Courtesy Ncontemporary.
Born in 1989 in Bobigny. Lives and works in London and Paris.
Presented by Etienne Hatt
Sucer la nuit
Alix Marie’s artistic practice combines photography, sculpture and installation. Her work explores our relationship to the body and its depiction with a particular interest in gender stereotypes.
Alix Marie’s work is under tension. It oscillates between fictional narrative, which unfolds in installations infused with rich networks of meaning, and the brutality of reality, emphasized by close-ups. But it would be wrong to see two conflicting modes. On the one hand, both borrow as much from ancient mythology and popular narratives as from the life of the artist and those close to her. On the other hand, both of them call upon the body, that of the spectator who experiences the work, that of the artist at work and that which is shown, most often in the form of fragments. If the body is thus omnipresent, it is because it is both envisaged as an object of desire and the product of norms. Alix Marie’s work is thus permeated by a powerful eroticism informed, in particular, by the theories of psychiatrist Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault, author of Passion érotique des étoffes chez la femme (1908). Nonetheless, although Alix Marie uses psychiatry in this way, it is also in order to critique it, just as she critiques our imaginations and our representations, which contribute equally to the creation of gender stereotypes. The construction of femininity is at the centre of Sucer la nuit (2019), an installation presented at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Locle and updated for a ppr oc he, which summons the three female figures of the witch, the mermaid and the godmother, weighing heavy in the popular imagination. Étienne Hatt.
Alix Marie is a graduate of Central Saint Martins College (London, 2011) and the Royal College Of Art (London, 2014). In 2019 she was awarded the Vic Odden Award by the Royal Photographic Society, which annually recognizes the work of an artist under the age of 35. Recent exhibitions include Styx, National Center for Photography, Ballarat (solo, 2021), Nude, Fotografiska Stockholm (2021), Photoworks festival: Propositions for Alternative Narratives, Brighton (2020), Athens Photo Festival, Benaki Museum, Athens (2020), Sucer La Nuit, Musée des Beaux Arts, Le Locle (solo, 2019), Shredded, Roman Road, London (solo, 2019), and Peer to Peer, SCOP, Shanghai (2019) .
Ncontemporary
Established in 2014 in London by Emanuele Norsa, Ncontemporary presents its exhibition program in its Milanese space and in project spaces in London. Through collaborations with galleries, collectors, curators and public institutions, its main intention is to support emerging and mid-career artists who have a particular interest in going beyond the boundaries of their respective practices. From 2014 until the end of 2016, Ncontemporary’s main exhibition space was a former garage in Knightsbridge, London. The space was opened with a project by Patrick Tuttofuoco. In early 2017 the gallery moved to Milan where it opened with a solo exhibition by German artist Zehra Arslan. In January 2019, Ncontemporary inaugurated its new space in Milan, Via Lulli, where it puts on 5 solo exhibitions per year in addition to in situ projects in its project room and garden.
Ncontemporary, Via Giovanni Lulli, 5 — 20131 Milan, Italy
