Bettina Rheims’ and the Femen’s naked war

If you are one of Bettina Rheims’ twenty thousand subscribers on Instagram, you will have noticed the hashtag with which she now begins each of her posts: #mycameraisaweapon, translate “my camera is a weapon”. Since the 1980s, her photographic work has challenged the codes of representation of women and their bodies. A political work, in a sense, illustrated by works like “Gender Studies” in 2011 or “Detainees” (2014), a series of portraits of incarcerated women. Thus his meeting with the Femen in 2017 is obvious. In collaboration with the writer Serge Bramly, Bettina Rheims signs “Naked War”, a project exhibited at Xippas Gallery where she transposes the political activism of the feminist group onto the walls of the gallery. With the simplicity of portraits on a white background, the impact of photography is total: the Femen all carry a message painted on their bare chests but devoid of any eroticism. “Nobody submits me”, “Deliver us from the male”, so many powerful messages that can no longer be read in the public space but in the field of contemporary art with this exhibition to see until November 25. http://www.xippas.com