"Beauty knows no pain" is a phrase that, upon closer scrutiny, is shocking and disturbing. The French artist Annette Messager (*1943 in Berck) began pursuing this idea in the seventies when she assembled photographs from magazines for her groundbreaking series Les Tortures Volontiers (Voluntary Torture). In Messager's photographs, which are as alarming as they are absurd, breasts are lifted into suction cups, thighs are massaged with electricity, exfoliations look as if a second layer of skin is being peeled off. Yet the ...
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"Beauty knows no pain" is a phrase that, upon closer scrutiny, is shocking and disturbing. The French artist Annette Messager (*1943 in Berck) began pursuing this idea in the seventies when she assembled photographs from magazines for her groundbreaking series Les Tortures Volontiers (Voluntary Torture). In Messager's photographs, which are as alarming as they are absurd, breasts are lifted into suction cups, thighs are massaged with electricity, exfoliations look as if a second layer of skin is being peeled off. Yet the laughter sticks in the viewer's throat, because women all around the world still actually submit themselves to these and other procedures in order to look more like the norm and more "beautiful." Messager recently rediscovered these prints in her studio. This is the first time the eighty-one-part series has been published in its entirety and in its original size. In the accompanying essay, the artist, whose work has been exhibited multiple times at the documenta, discusses the genesis of the series.
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Add this copy of Annette Messager: Voluntary Tortures to cart. $23.00, new condition, Sold by Powell's Books Chicago rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Chicago, IL, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Hatje Cantz.
Add this copy of Annette Messager: Voluntary Tortures to cart. $26.50, very good condition, Sold by Midtown Scholar Bookstore rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Harrisburg, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Hatje Cantz.
Add this copy of Annette Messager: Voluntary Tortures to cart. $52.46, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Hatje Cantz.
Add this copy of Annette Messager: Voluntary Tortures to cart. $75.00, new condition, Sold by Hennessey + Ingalls rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Los Angeles, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Hatje Cantz Publishers.
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Seller's Description:
New. In the early 1970s, Annette Messager (born 1943) began collecting photographs from magazines, collating them into the groundbreaking series of 81 photographs known as 'Voluntary Tortures. ' These black-and-white photographs depict women undergoing various kinds of cosmetic procedures: breasts being shoveled into suction pads, thighs massaged with electricity, face peelings and more extreme kinds of plastic surgery. The images are often comical, but mostly--as the title proposes--hideous and disturbing. The bizarre contraptions deployed, the awkward positions of the subjects and their coerced body parts grimly articulate the submission of individual physique to social norm. Messager recently rediscovered the prints of this important, pioneering work of feminist art in her studio, making possible their first-ever publication in this large, handsome, slipcased volume, which reproduces the entire series at its original size. The artist discusses the creation of the series in an accompanying essay.
Add this copy of Annette Messager: Voluntary Tortures to cart. $85.41, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Hatje Cantz.
