THE TEMPTATIONS OF PIERRE MOLINIER
2015-08-17This exhibition presents a selection of more than 50 of his groundbreaking photographs, drawings and paintings, dating from 1952 onwards. It was at this time that Molinier moved towards a more ‘magical’ style of art, a style that sought to bring to the surface unconscious desires and erotic drives and subsequently captured the attention of André Bréton, the founder of Surrealism. Breton became an avid supporter of his work and organised Molinier’s first exhibition L’Étoile Scellée, in 1956, which established his reputation.
Molinier’s fascination with the body and the erotic manifested itself through his carefully staged photographic portraits and self-portraits. Whilst his paintings and drawings depicted female characters in vertiginous, dark backgrounds, in his photographs he adopted a more joyful approach, reshaping his and his model’s appearances through doll’s masks, clothing, accessories, and S&M paraphernalia. Cross-dressing was, for Molinier, the preferred method of reshaping his own appearance, and this exhibition will present a collection of these self-portraits.
Molinier’s creative process was both strict and experimental: he would mix colour pigments with his sperm; he only used as models the people whom he loved; he would fellate himself whilst releasing the camera’s shutter; he would have sex with the dolls he was using for his shootings; hand-sew and alter female undergarments to fit his body; alter photographs by manually manipulating the negatives using his body parts.
Opposite – Le Festin de Manes, planche 40 du Chaman, 1960
Exhibition runs through to October 2nd, 2015
Richard Saltoun
111 Great Titchfield St
London
W1W 6RY
