umbrella
west coast exhibitions

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Jacqueline Doyen’s work focuses on the relationship between the human body and its environment, which becomes visible in movement. The question of how much our (social and material) environment dictates movement or behaviour and defines our freedom is the guiding principle.

 

“Doyen’s sculptures are sort of prosthesis, extensions of the body which allow its transformation into a picture. Her work always revolves around the question of “what happens when a picture is created?” In contrast to the tableau vivant, in which dead pictures are reenacted by living bodies, Doyen does not simply transfer the frozen temporal image back into corporeality, but instead she sets in motion a complex process of pictorial genesis between present and absent bodies, previous and subsequent images, sculptures and poses.” (1)

 

The realisation has elements of both sculpture and performance - the constructions that Jacqueline Doyen creates are objects that at first glance seem familiar, but the attempt to understand how they are handled or used is irritating.

While her previous works often required clear poses from the user, the dimensions of the piece specifically planned for the wild field of umbrella hardly allow for this interaction, but are reminiscent of it.

Inspired by the idea of a 50 foot tall woman, a giantess as depicted in the 1958 science fiction film ‘Attack of the 50 Foot Woman’, Jacqueline Doyen plays with the idea of an oversized female body in her new work. Using partly coloured and partly upholstered metallic elements, she creates a construction that makes the idea of use by a giantess possible in the first place, but at the same time caricatures it. The absence of the figure in the sculpture suggests both her potential presence and her possible appearance, which is literally expected.  

(1) Excerpt by Ute Stuffer from From the Pose to the Picture: Thoughts upon the Works of Jacqueline Doyen, Exhibition catalogue, Kunstverein Hannover, 2009

 

Jacqueline Doyen (*1978 in Nice, lives in Berlin) graduated from Villa Arson in Nice in 2002 and from HBK Braunschweig in Germany in 2005. Doyen has exhibited at MARTa Herford, Germany; ISCP, New York City, USA; EVA International Biennial, Limerick, Ireland; Galeria Unosunove Arte Contemporanea, Rome, Italy; Kunstverein Hannover, Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Germany, French Institut, Berlin, Germany and Gl Holtegård, Holte, Denmark, among others.

 

 

The exhibition is supported by Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond.