In Nîmes, an exhibition of ransacked feminist photographs

On the walls, large tagged phallus, including a vulva, replaced the photographs. Most lie from the ground, torn from their frames, torn and trampled. Others, always on their ranges, appear disfigured from the open far by wide by Male sexes summarily traced with the bomb. Presented since April 11 at the Art and Photography Center Blackwithin a building designed by the architect Jean Nouvel in Nîmes, The “Benzine Cyprine” exhibition of photographer Kamille Lévêque Jégo was ransacked on the night of April 25 to 26.

The vandals (s), which destroyed 90% of the prints exposedseem not to have appreciated The powerful feminist message conveyed by this series. Awarded at the Manifesto Festival in Toulouse in 2018, then exhibited in 2019 in the form of a screening during the night of the year of Arles meetings, it unrolls a false photographic report, both intense and tinged with humor, within a fictitious gang of combative womenthe “Benzine Cyprine”, who express a cry of revolt against violence against women and stereotypes associated with the female genre.

Photographs that thwart the stereotypes

Sporting piercings, tattoos and leather jackets, the protagonists engage in acts of rebellion and display attitudes or features considered “male”. fight against mentrigger a fire, make bodybuilding or draw feminist tags, while one of them, pregnant, looks at us head -on with contained anger.

The artist Kamille Lévêque Jégowho has been developing his work for ten years, has deplored “A hateful and reactionary reaction to the expression of an emancipated and sovereign femininity ”. “On the one hand, I am not really surprised, because it aggressive behavior is systematic, permanent, present all around us. And at the same time, I am dismayed in the face of this mediocrity, ”she said at the microphone of France Inter.

A radicalization of hatred against female emancipation

“It’s amazing. We are in a time when people let go completely on social networks, where to the clothes Behind screens and nicknames, which triggers behavior in real life, ”replied, landed, the director of the center, Patrice Loubon who worn complaint against x For sexist outrage, intrusion and degradation of a place of art and destruction of works of art. An act also revealing for him of an increasing radicalization of reactionary opinions and a increasingly violent rejection of feminism. “There is a growing conservatism, with several adults from this world that blocks to Maintain the patriarchy And bring women back to an alienating traditional role, ”he deplores.

«The masculinism is an expanding current, especially among young people, and develops in parallel with the movement of translates [né dans les pays anglo-saxons dans les années 2010, ndlr]who vehicles A very degraded image of the woman ”continues the director. “There is a reactionary forces multiplication which are expressed in various ways, in all strata of society, from the richest and powerful, like Trump and Musk, to the most disadvantaged ”.

“I don’t hesitate to Show artists who have things to sayto enter the stretchers a little, but still paying attention not to cause too much in inappropriate places, “said the director, who has” already suffered Several attacks “from Graffitis of the far right homophobic to Rennes to a letter from a moralizing league summarizing him to win works from an exhibition in Aurillac. In 2024, he and the artist Fatima Mazmouz had also been Attracted and insulted during the exhibition “Sex and witchcraft”by a neighbor judging that the latter contravened the values ​​of Islam, and which regularly criticizes the center of alcohol consumption during openings.

The exhibition soon reassembled

“I am disgusted, but we don’t want to be put down. We are determined to do everything for Go up the exhibition as soon as possibleand so that it can be shown longer than expected, for several months, to Mark well “insists the director. For the moment, the Negpos center remains close to the door, and will receive this Tuesday, May 6 a visit to the insurers for evaluate the damage. A crowdfunding campaign is also being set up to allow reassembly. Meanwhile, a link is available to make a donation instead and a subscription proposed to support the artist in his book project on the series shown in the exhibition.