Posted by Joseph Nechvatal on June 11, 1996 at 03:40:57:
Paris
Review
Henri Maccheroni
2000 Photos du Sexe d'une Femme
A l'Enseigne des Oudin
58 rue Quincampoix 75004
and
Galerie Mantoux-Gignac
55, rue des Archives 75003
Depending on one's sexual orientation and taste, 2000 photographs of a woman's (or are they many many women's - we're never sure) vagina can be quite daunting. Even in arty black & white these tightly cropped close ups of twisting hairy female form made my feminine companion squirm and blush. I pity the unisexual gay male that may have strayed in the galerie A l'Enseigne des Oudin by chance as he did the gallery rounds. The late surrealist panache which permitted and sanctioned the creation of this body of work between 1969-1972 seems very foreign and exciting to our puritanical standards. I was astonished they could be exhibited at all and applaud the galleries for their courage. Even a man loving lesbian friend seemed quite offended - perhaps because I told her in advance the pictures had been taken by a male, or perhaps by the fact that these photographs were not particular lovely visions. They were a chore to consume.
I was informed the photographs on view had been edited down from 6000 which make up the complete series, too many to mount.
Perhaps a bit more palatable was a later group from the artist's oeuvre at Galerie Mantoux-Gignac. There under the theme Aspects érotiques de la période socio-critique 1972-1974 one encountered more female vaginas but now kaleidoscoped and psychedelicized. They formed odd looking bird like creatures and funny fluted troughs. Their socio-critical nature eluded me, but I found myself wanting to get a particularly saucy one and take it home, which I did.
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