“Anonymous, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
— Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929)
INvisible is a performance centered on the history of female artists who have been rendered invisible in the history of art, up to the present day. Deprived of recognition, they find themselves having to claim their own place, define it, inhabit it—sometimes at great cost and upheaval.
Karine Marenne (BE)
This is what Karine Marenne, visual artist, performer, and manipulator of IMAGE and the decorum of social codes, presents to us in the “gallery” of Botanique. This somewhat hidden room, at the end of the corridor, on the second floor of the building.
Becoming one with the space, the artist, locked inside a wardrobe teetering precariously on History of Art from the Year 1000 to the Present Day (Hazan Editions, 2009)—opened to the only female artist mentioned in the book—gradually attempts to escape from this piece of furniture, here a symbol of invisibility, through a series of absurd actions and with the help of a few props.
How far must one go in exhibiting oneself to maintain a place in this field and avoid being forgotten, shelved, hidden behind a systemic approach?
Karine Marenne (she, her) is a visual artist and performer. Her artistic work manipulates and explores the concept of IMAGE in its broadest sense. She conceives of performance as a poetic/political act or action aimed at revealing the cracks in the system. She uses the body to create an Image and stages herself by subverting feminine codes and archetypes. Derision is her weapon of choice. She deliberately employs a stereotyped, falsely naive imagery that infiltrates an environment that is not her own. By unsettling reality, a shift occurs, giving rise to burlesque characters.
In 2006, Karine Marenne created We Love ART, transforming the BOZAR palace into a fitness room where artists, curators, and security guards were invited to sweat for Art. From 2005 to 2008, she developed a long-running nomadic series with Caravan of Love. From 2012 to 2017, armed with a feather duster, she proclaimed herself Art Maid, wandering through art fairs to build her own collection of collectors. From 2016 to 2018, Artiste Couple saw Karine Marenne perform the concept of the couple. Currently, Apron Role is a voluntary un-peeling, involving the successive donning of 50 aprons.
Infos
| DATE | CONTENU |
|---|---|
| 2025/04/191500 |
19.04.2025 15:00 Botanique, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode |
Durational performance (30′), in the Galerie space. Free access, entry and exit allowed.
Text: Maëlle Delaplanche
Co-produced with Le Botanique
