Contemporary art seems to find itself in a constant battle between the logical and the illogical, the possible and the impossible, the visible and the invisible. Is it better to be understood, or to understand something about the world? Do we have to explain everything? Should we even try?
This seems to be the question at the heart of Annette Messager’s first exhibition at Marian Goodman in London, and her first major appearance since her 2009 show at the Hayward Gallery. Messager, a somewhat eccentric, euphemism enthusiast, who has won various awards for her art, presents a series of visual riddles that offer the viewer both an easy route and a hard one. Cryptically titled 'Avec et sans raison' (with and without reason) the French visual artist plays with all kinds of materials and symbols, in a cavalcade of artworks that prod at both your instinct and your intellect, and leave neither in tact.
‘Wallpaper Uterus’, 2017
For example, the 30 pendant sculptures that make up Daily (2016), including a giant safety pin, comb, key and pair of scissors, make you feel like one of The Borrowers, dangling threateningly above your head, while inexplicable works like 3 Escargots-Seins (three snails-breasts) and Le Bras Chassure, (the arm shoe) seem to have come straight through the proverbial looking glass.
Easier to decipher are Messager’s ’vengeful’ uteruses, a dominant presence in the exhibition space: there’s a new sculpture, the very pink Tututerus (2017), attached to a frothy leotard bobbing in the air blowing from a nearby electric fan, and of course, her Wallpaper Uterus (2017) covering several expanses of wall with different uterus designs.
What Messager successfully shines a light on is our own ability to be utterly - and uterally - perplexed. ’Avec et sans raison’ is the perfect presentation of what the writer Albert Camus might call the ‘absurd’: the tussle with our own desire to understand everything, while fully realising that we don’t know anything.
Left, Daily (detail), 2016. Right, Les Interdictions, 2014
Installation view of ’avec et sans raisons’
Installation view of ’avec et sans raisons’
Coquelicots (Poppies), 2016
Papier peint Utérus (Wallpaper Uterus), 2017
Utérus doigt d’honneur (Uterus Giving the Finger), 2017
Left, Daily (detail), 2016. Right, En équilibre (In Equilibrium), 2015
Installation view of ’avec et sans raisons’
En trottinette (On My Scooter), 2015
INFORMATION
‘Avec et sans raison’ is on view until 27 May. For more information, visit the Marian Goodman Gallery website
ADDRESS
Marian Goodman
5–8 Lower John Street
London W1F 9DY
-
Tour the best contemporary tea houses around the worldCelebrate the world’s most unique tea houses, from Melbourne to Stockholm, with a new book by Wallpaper’s Léa Teuscher
-
‘Humour is foundational’: artist Ella Kruglyanskaya on painting as a ‘highly questionable’ pursuitElla Kruglyanskaya’s exhibition, ‘Shadows’ at Thomas Dane Gallery, is the first in a series of three this year, with openings in Basel and New York to follow
-
Australian bathhouse ‘About Time’ bridges softness and brutalism‘About Time’, an Australian bathhouse designed by Goss Studio, balances brutalist architecture and the softness of natural patina in a Japanese-inspired wellness hub
-
‘Humour is foundational’: artist Ella Kruglyanskaya on painting as a ‘highly questionable’ pursuit
Ella Kruglyanskaya’s exhibition, ‘Shadows’ at Thomas Dane Gallery, is the first in a series of three this year, with openings in Basel and New York to follow
-
The art of the textile label: how British mill-made cloth sold itself to Indian buyersAn exhibition of Indo-British textile labels at the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP) in Bengaluru is a journey through colonial desire and the design of mass persuasion
-
Artist Qualeasha Wood explores the digital glitch to weave stories of the Black female experienceIn ‘Malware’, her new London exhibition at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, the American artist’s tapestries, tuftings and videos delve into the world of internet malfunction
-
Ed Atkins confronts death at Tate BritainIn his new London exhibition, the artist prods at the limits of existence through digital and physical works, including a film starring Toby Jones
-
Tom Wesselmann’s 'Up Close' and the anatomy of desireIn a new exhibition currently on show at Almine Rech in London, Tom Wesselmann challenges the limits of figurative painting
-
A major Frida Kahlo exhibition is coming to the Tate Modern next yearTate’s 2026 programme includes 'Frida: The Making of an Icon', which will trace the professional and personal life of countercultural figurehead Frida Kahlo
-
A portrait of the artist: Sotheby’s puts Grayson Perry in the spotlightFor more than a decade, photographer Richard Ansett has made Grayson Perry his muse. Now Sotheby’s is staging a selling exhibition of their work
-
From counter-culture to Northern Soul, these photos chart an intimate history of working-class Britain‘After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024’ is at Edinburgh gallery Stills
