À partir d'Elle

When the institution of the family is being called into question – in ways that are both necessary and worthwhile – and when the roles assigned to the family need to be re-imagined, the realms of the political and the intimate become intertwined.

A Partir d’Elle discloses the diverse approaches employed by artists to represent and rethink this primary relationship. The mother figure not only becomes a reflection of oneself, of one’s own history and of what constitutes and impresses us as beings, but also a reflection of our world, its social codes, shackles and structures. “Where do I fit in?” the artists all seem to ask…

What do the works in this book all have in common? They were all conceived in a tête-à-tête between the artists and their mothers. Whether the encounters were consented, passive or submissive, they were sometimes part of an active mother-artist collaboration – such as the photographic series by Latoya Ruby Frazier or Gao Shan, and the videos by Anri Sala or Ragnar Kjartansson. Plastic processes, primarily the works of Chantal Ackerman, Lebohang Kganye and Ishiuchi Miyako, further embody manifestations of the mother. Regardless of whether they seek to grasp the reality of presence or the effects of absence, the artists consider filiation as a way of rethinking relationship models, and as a means for allowing social criticism, the quest for self, conjuration or even appeasement. In A Partir d’Elle, the mother becomes a mirror.