ANNETTE MESSAGER
THE MESSENGERS
4 March – 25 May 2009
Southbank Centre,
Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XZ
Messager takes every day objects and materials such as soft toys, stuffed animals, fabrics, wool, photographs, words and other media and transforms them to create extraordinary artworks. The themes Messager examines are as wide-ranging as the materials she uses; from self-identity, sexuality and the body, to explorations of life and death, good and evil, and human and animal. At times humorous and playful, at times frightening and morbid, her works are characterised by a mixing of differing perspectives, challenging the viewer to look at the world anew and confront the fears and fantasies that lie beneath the surface of daily life. The exhibition was initially shown at the Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2007 where it attracted a record number of visitors and has since travelled to the Espoo Museum of Modern Art in Finland, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea and the Mori Art Museum in Japan
Ralph Rugoff, Director of The Hayward, said:
“Annette Messager is one of Europe’s most inventive and compelling artists, and for four decades has been making art that crosses humour and tragedy, toughness and sentiment, magic and everydayness, all in the cause of celebrating the full multiplicity of human nature. I am delighted that The Hayward is presenting the first major retrospective of her work in the UK.”
Messager was the first woman artist to be invited to represent France at the Venice Biennale in 2005. Beginning with her Collection Album series from the early 1970s that conjures up the private rituals developed by women in response to living in a male-dominated culture, the exhibition charts the artist’s ongoing interest in imaginatively exploring self-identity and issues related to how women are represented in our society. The Collection Album series is displayed in ‘The Secret Room of the Collector’, a room filled with the album collections Messager made while assuming the fictional personae of different female stereotypes, signing her work with identities such as Annette Messager Artist, Annette Messager Trickster and Annette Messager Practical Woman.
One of the characteristic features of Messager’s art is her innovative use of a range of media and materials in a single work. In My Trophies, painting is added to blown-up black and white photographs of parts of the human body, and in My Wishes tiny photographs of body parts are hung by string from the wall to form an elegant votive-like display. The body is omnipresent in Messager’s works and always depicted as fragmented – be it through photographs or in the form of dismembered soft toys – a metaphor for her perception of identity as divided and multifaceted.
Over the last 15 years, Messager’s artistic practice has expanded from two-dimensional works to large-scale installations, many of which have moving elements. Her more recent installations have a theatrical aesthetic, evident in The Hayward exhibition with works such as Articulated-Disarticulated, 2001-2002, which was first shown at Documenta X, and Casino, first shown at the Venice Biennale in 2005. Posing the question of what it means to be human, both in a physical and spiritual sense, Casino firmly establishes Messager’s place as one of the most compelling and prolific artists of our time.
Annette Messager: The Messengers is an international touring exhibition organised by the Centre Pompidou, Paris in collaboration with The Hayward. It opens at The Hayward on 4 March – 25 May 2009.
The Hayward, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XZ
Public Programme
To accompany the exhibition, The Hayward is programming a series of events and lectures that compliment and further explore the works within the exhibition:
Thursday 5 March
Annette Messager in conversation with Ralph Rugoff
Annette Messager discusses her exhibition Annette Messager: The Messengers with Ralph Rugoff, Director of The Hayward.
Friday 27 March
The Collector, The Trickster, The Handy-woman, The Peddler and The Liar
Art historian and feminist scholar Griselda Pollock discusses the significance of role-play in the artistic practice of Annette Messager with Elisabeth Lebovici, art critic and one of the most prominent figures of French feminism.
As well as Annette Messager: The Messengers, visitors will have the chance to see Mark Wallinger’s The Russian Linesman which runs until 4 May 2009.
Opening hours for The Hayward:
Open daily 10am-6pm
Fridays 10am-10pm
