THIS AUTUMN, THE MUSEUM OF SPIRITS PRESENTS WORK BY BÉATRICE CUSSOL, A FASCINATING EXAMPLE OF THE FEMINIST CURRENT IN ART – AND SINCE 2003, REPRESENTED IN THE UNIQUE ABSOLUT ART COLLECTION. ARTIST JENS FÄNGE DESIGNED THE ROOM WHERE CUSSOL’S WORK IS DISPLAYED. LIKE CUSSOL’S ART ITSELF, THE WHITE AND BLOOD-RED WALLS SPARK ASSOCIATIONS TO LOVE, BUT ALSO TO MORE OR LESS UNPLEASANT BODILY FLUIDS.

CUTE ANIMALS, FLUFFY CLOUDS, BLOOD, SEX AND SATISFACTION
On display are surrealistic watercolours done in fluid brushstrokes, almost like the panels of a comic book. At first glance, Cussol’s paintings look like they could have been made by a schoolgirl, filled as they are with pigtails, colourful handbags, ruffled dresses and fluffy clouds with eyes and mouths. Look closer, though, and their content is ambiguous, unpleasant, confusing. The women in the paintings do not behaving the way you might expect.

Instead of being cute, sweet and good, they revel in sex and violence. Utterly self-involved, they take no responsibility for anybody’s needs but their own. Men are conspicuously absent. Cussol humorously exaggerates her figures’ girlishness to the point of absurdity. Intimate anatomical details and bodily fluids flow in neatly patterned formations. The results are amusing and ironic.

A NOD TO RENAISSANCE GROTESQUES
Many of Cussol’s works resemble renaissance grotesques in their composition. The women are positioned like decorative arrangements. Always with humour, Cussol sparks associations both to the traditions of the grotesque in painting and the way the female body has historically been reduced to a decorative element in art.

PAINTINGS DISPLAYED IN A SURREAL ROOM

The Museum of Spirits invited Swedish artist Jens Fänge to act as co-curator, commissioning him to design a room around Béatrice Cussol’s artwork based on his own artistic approach. Working together, the two artists created an environment far from the usual white museum cube; according to Fänge it is “a cross between the Cabinet of Dr Caligari and the corridor in Repulsion”.

Entering Cussol’s show is like stepping into a stage set that balances between cheery playfulness and claustrophobic horror. The spaces are skewed and do not accord with our usual understanding of spatiality. Cussol’s works hang against white walls built on top of red walls. The blood-red colour that peeks out from behind the white associates to love, but also to the corporeal, to blood and a creeping sense of anxiety.

BACKGROUND:
Béatrice Cussol was born in 1970 in Toulouse, France, and first garnered international attention in 2007 with the work she entered in the legendary group show Global Feminisms, curated by Maura Reilly and Linda Nochlin at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. The Museum of Spirits is exhibiting a selection of Cussol’s recent work, including several new pieces painted specifically for the show.

The show at the Museum of Spirits coincides with the international release of a monograph on Béatrice Cussol published by Art and Theory Publishing in Stockholm.

The show runs from 19 September to 14 February 2014.