Breasts take center stage at Venice Biennale exhibition

CNN
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What is one of the oldest and most enduring topics in art and media – as well as one of the most censored? Breasts. First carved into small figurines of “Venus” around 25,000 years ago as fertility totems, they are now seen (or hidden) as a powerful symbol of desire, motherhood, feminism, sexism, ideals of beauty, challenge, controversy or illness, depending. on the context.

And these are all themes explored extensively in the “Breasts” exhibition, a solid investigation exhibited at the 60th Venice Biennale. Hosted at Palazzo Franchetti, the exhibition includes artworks from well-known names such as Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe and Salvador Dalí, as well as early career artists including Anna Weyant, Chloe Wise and Lakin Ogunbanwo. Divided into five rooms in keeping with the building’s art deco designs, the works of art are meant to dialogue with each other – and with the exhibition’s visitors – according to the exhibition’s curator, Carolina Pasti.

“It’s very intimate, so it’s perfect for international artists to develop a dialogue with each other,” she said during a video call.

One of the first juxtapositions visitors encounter is that between the first work in the exhibition, an early 16th-century Madonna and Child by Bernardino del Signoraccio, and a self-portrait by Sherman that depicts the artist draped in breasts prosthetics and a pregnant belly. Both images of motherhood feature exaggerated anatomy – the baby Jesus in Del Signoraccio’s panel painting exposing his mother’s rigid chest, while Sherman displays a hyperrealistic silicone torso in his riff on Raphael’s painting “The Fornarina” – and sets the stage by showing how Renaissance artists have continued to influence our attitudes towards breasts today.

From there, the exhibition extends through painting, sculpture and design, photography, commercial advertising and video art, exploring how breasts have been seen and represented through male gazes and feminine.

“It goes back to cave paintings: we’ve always been fascinated by the human form, and particularly the female form, which has an incredible charm and mystery,” said artist Teniqua Crawford, who is exhibiting a delicate rendering of the breast . landscape. “Artists keep coming back to it. »

“It’s been a wonderful time to contemplate my own relationship with the meaning of breasts,” she added of the series.

“Breasts” was staged, in part, to promote breast cancer awareness and marks a partnership with the nonprofit medical research Fondazione IEO-MONZINO, which will receive a portion of sales from its catalog. It’s a theme evident throughout the show, with bright pink staging and sets inspired by the color of the cause. This includes a passageway designed by Buchanan Studio, “Booby Trap,” which is draped in pink fabric and features 35 anatomical lights from above.

And the opening night treats? All according to the theme, of course, with chocolate candies and burrata in suggestive shapes.

Scroll through to see the works in the exhibition, which runs until November 24 at Palazzo Franchetti.