On the occasion of the project Persona of FOTOHAUS on view during the Rencontres d´Arles, CHAUSSEE 36 presents at the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation a selection of works of its group exhibition “EROS & PHOTOGRAPHY – Part I: Behind Desire”, seeking to introduce eroticism, the Art of Desire, and to examine its different facets in artistic photography.
The Persona, described by Carl Gustav Jung as a system of behaviors dictated by society, leading us to conform to certain norms, seems to be the antithesis of eroticism. Linked to our most intimate fantasies, eroticism does not belong to the basis of our traditional values. It is even and still today the subject of taboo and is regularly confused with nudity, sex and pornography. What value does eroticism have?
Between games of seduction, fantasies, dreams, and transgressions, how does the individual manage to free himself from his social mask and blossom? We will have to seek the Shadow Self, a notion opposed to the Persona, which includes all the facets of the personality repressed or rejected by the Ego, to unveil the multiple faces of Eros.
This exhibition does not lift a veil on eroticism by illuminating it only under an aesthetic aspect, but allows the visitor to have an encounter with his own Eros, beyond gender and sexual orientation.
“” Eros is a mighty daemon”, as the wise Diotima said to Socrates. We shall never get the better of him […]. He is not the whole of our inward nature, though he is at least one of its essential aspects.” Carl Gustav Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious, 1916
A book is published on the occasion of the exhibition (limited edition of 500 copies, English).
Exhibited Artists: Gilles Berquet, De Gambs, Natalia Dymkowski, René Groebli, Heinz Hajek-Halke, Thomas Hodges, Eva Ionesco, Jean-François Jonvelle, Maria La Sangre, David Pisani, Herb Ritts, Tono Stano, Felicia Scheuerecker, Miriam Tölke
Curator: Mathilde Leroy
BEHIND DESIRE – Shadow Self CHAUSSEE 36
at Les Rencontres d’ Arles Échos système
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation 18 Rue de la Calade, 13200 Arles 04/07 – 26/09/2021
10am – 7:30pm
https://www.rencontres-arles.com/fr/expositions/view/1029/echos-systeme
