The Donjon de Vez presents a collection of fifteen significant works of modern and contemporary art. It offers an overview of the representation of women, as sculpted by artists such as Aristide Maillol, Niki de Saint Phalle, Manolo Valdés, Antonacci Volti, Salvador Dalí, Germaine Richier, Robert Couturier, Jeff Koons, John de Andrea, Antoine Bourdelle and Emmanuel Frémiet, using various materials (bronze, stone, resin, metal…).

Aristide Maillol (1861-1944) Vénus sans bras, 1922 (Bronze) Private Collection

For centuries, from Antiquity to the end of the 19th century, female sculptures populated gardens, churches, public squares, and interiors. Often, their bodies were an allegory of love and war, to magnify history or in reference to ancient times.

John de Andrea (b. 1941), Katie (Seated), 1998, Private Collection particulière

Starting from the early 20th century, women emancipated and strengthened, and artists accompanied this evolution by transforming their representation according to their thoughts, new materials, and their travels around the world. Moreover, the successive arrival of photography and cinematography further evolved the clichés related to beauty.

Robert Couturier (1905-2009), La Savonnette, 1994 (Bronze), Private Collection

While Niki de Saint Phalle’s colorful “Nanas” anticipated feminist liberation movements, the sculptures of virgins in churches remain imprisoned in a profoundly reductive role of motherhood. If Jeff Koons, through pink metal balloons, testifies to his vision of women through the prism of a modern-day Venus, Maillol sublimates their forms and cuts their arms in a clear reference to the Venus de Milo. Finally, when Manolo Valdés showcases his Meninas at fashion week in echo of Velázquez’s, John de Andrea, the great American hyperrealist sculptor of the 70s, works on flesh tones as the central element of attention.

Germaine Richier (1902-1959), Diabolo, 1950 (Bronze), Private Collection

Thus, whether they are naked or draped; in swimsuits or robes; made of bronze, resin, polyvinyl, or plaster, they all are, as Baudelaire wrote: “Belle, ô mortelle, comme un rêve de pierre” (“Beautiful, o mortal, as a dream of stone.“)

A century after their first meeting, sculptor Germaine Richier is reunited with her teacher Antoine Bourdelle at the Donjon de Vez, where her funny animal-headed visitors are escorted by the chapel’s gargoyles.

An ecological visionary, the woman who was nicknamed the Sorcière royale (the royal witch), places as much value on animal life as she does on human life. Fascinated by insects, and all of those miniscule lives that she dissected and reproduced in her engravings, Germaine Richier announces the mutation of the human being with Nature. The artist’s mythology is marked by a certain violence, its creatures alternating between prehistory and science-fiction. She creates transgender persons, with no identity, humanoids with grasshopper legs. Skeletal bodies where shreds of flesh are fossilised on bones to better express the passage from life to death.

Download the exhibition’s catalog (in French)

On the occasion of the Paris + event, the Donjon de Vez will host an exhibition by artist Ye Linghan, in partneship with the HdM Gallery, which moved to Beijing in 2009.

“Ye Linghan, born in 1985 in Shanghai, is one of the most noticeable artists of the contemporary Chinese artistic world. He creates large paintings which immediately catch the eye with their swirling of multicoloured shapes, inside which appear pale, diaphanous and interlaced silhouettes evocative of human figures” – Serge Lemoine

From 18 to 24 October 2022, by appointment

More information and booking : 01 42 99 20 33 – adeturenne@artcurial.com

Le Donjon de Vez accueille les visages d’habitants du Pays de Valois souhaitant témoigner de leur attachement à leur territoire, au travers d’une initiative artistique internationale initiée par l’artiste JR en 2011: le projet INSIDE OUT.

This summer, the Donjon de Vez will host an exhibition dedicated to “small” examples of architecture or, as exhibition partner Philippe Gravier likes to call them, “jewels”.
The models and shacks presented are authentic “gestures”, at the frontier between art and architecture : the reduction in proportions allows for more creativity and freedom, and calls for a renewed concept of habitat. The style and personal imagination of each architect are deployed and echo contemporary ecological concerns regarding the rational use of materials, ressources and available living spaces.

On n’est pas sérieux quand on a 17 ans… Who is to say that Arthur Rimbaud wouldn’t have traded his semelles de vent for a blue moped to drive down main street terrorizing the good people of Charleville ? More than any other object, the moped symbolizes the no man’s land between teenager and young man : this passing age when blurred dreams flash through the mind. First moped, first kisses, and often first acne symptoms… Who hasn’t felt the thrill of freedoom while accelerating with a twist of the right hand ? I may not yet be the master of the world, but I’m the king of the neighborhood when I’m driving a friend around on the luggage rack while my exhaust draws smoke spirals on the asphalt.

What would Monsieur Hulot and Rabbi Jacob be without their Solex, or Johnny Hallyday without his Paloma ?

From Schumacher’s scooter to César’s compression, including the Dax, Monkey, Caddy, Manhurin, Vespa, Zoomer, moped are the stars.

Practical information

The exhibition will include 25 vehicles. Scenography by Hubert Legall.

From July 1 to October 31, 2021

From July 1 to September 19, everyday from 1:30 PM to 6:30 PM.

From September 25 to October 31, on Saturdays and Sundays from 1:30 PM to 6:30 PM.

As a counterpoint to the Lalanne exhibition, the Donjon de Vez present in a newly-renovated space a suspension by young sculptor Ferdinand Makouvia, born in Lomé (Togo) in 1989.

Antoine Bourdelle, Auguste Rodin, Camille Claudel, Aristide Maillol…

Joan Miró, Antoine Bourdelle, Auguste Renoir, Arman, César, Fernand Léger…