In the wake of the 1968 student protests, Nicole Gravier moved to Milan and began to make art. Over the course of the following decade, she would come to produce a seminal body of work. In the series shown here, she deconstructs the press and media of the time, dislodging patriarchal narratives and undermining capitalist modes. As she mimics the tools used by an industry designed to subdue the masses with entertainment, Gravier lays bare those conceits we are usually all too tired to notice. She builds a language that is uniquely hers, setting her apart from artists like Cindy Sherman, who worked comparably and contemporaneously in the United States (Sherman’s 1976 Bus Riders postdates Gravier’s Cartes Postales). If her eye is analytical and discerning, her voice is distinctly playful and poetic, and in this contradiction, she reconstructs a world we can all sympathize with and find comfort in.
In Myths et Clichés/Fotoromanzi (1976-1980) and Cartes Postales/Postcards (1973), Gravier places herself both in front of and behind the camera (she is the protagonist in the images that you see), creating scenes that are at once particular and generic. She is there to receive the promises of a burgeoning capitalist world, the stories of a rapidly expanding, tirelessly broadcast America, the nuclear family, money, and fame—resolution in surrendering. Gravier becomes fascinated by the cosmic magnetism of social promises, or pressures: of Love, Beauty, Success, Culture, and Happiness (“the clichés” as she calls them). And then, she defies them. She does so, simply, by embracing them and then being bold enough to elaborate on them. Every myth she momentarily inhabits is complicated by elements that might, at first glance, seem out of place. These tonal and stylistic disruptions—a book with Marilyn Monroe on its cover reads “the making of a woman,” a copy of the fotoromanzo Noidue sits next to a Red Brigade pamphlet—reveal a more intricate reality, one which might at first appear dark, but is profoundly hopeful and sincere. In her works, she still yearns for love, beauty, success, culture, and happiness, but these mantras are no longer capitalised, nor are they capitalised upon. They are now vague desires, their helter-skelter chaos eroding the rigid outlines of capitalism’s myths. “So long, Nicole” she signs off her emails, a callback to the glamorous farewells of the fotoromanzo, before she invites us back to an anxiety-inducing but nonetheless more human world.
at Akwa Ibom, Athens
until June 1, 2023