Le masque rouge

2011
Annette Messager

Mixed media: marionette, mask, items covered in black, tutu
31 x 100 x 100 cm

Le Masque rouge (2011), a doll wearing a mask, her arms and legs splayed, leaving her defenceless, appears dead, struck down at the end of the show, once the magic has gone, a metaphor for the tragedy of life.

Hangs

Expressionist and contemplative works

From 17 December 2014 to 18 May 2015
Crossing views

From 23 September 2020 to 3 January 2021
Les approches - Chantal Akerman, Annette Messager

Espace Louis Vuitton München

From 4 March 2016 to 24 September 2016

Annette Messager belongs to a generation of artists who, since the 1970s, have been rewriting the language of art.

Without stating a specific position, Messager asserts her dual identity as a woman and an artist. She creates characters that cultivate ambiguity: the Collectionneuse, the Truqueuse, the Amoureuse and the Femme pratique, whose imaginary lives are opportunities to expose prejudice and express what is usually left unsaid. In the 1980s Messager began to incorporate fragments of the body through photography, fur and puppets, inserting them in mechanised worlds, focusing on the emotive and symbolic charge of works that reflect the theatre of life in derisory, grotesque or dramatic fashion. In 2005, Messager received the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, where she represented France.