the essential
From September 25 to November 29, photographer Danièle Boucon will be exhibiting violence against men at the Henri Desbals Center. An unprecedented “Cousu Main”.
The photos are beautiful, powerful and unexpected. At a time when #MeToo has brought to light the violence suffered by women for decades, it was bold of an artist to present the same violence against men. Danièle Boucon has done it. In the room of the Henri Delbals Center, the visitor discovers the exhibition “Cousu Main” photos of men masked in white, others with profiles hemmed with a thread, symbolizing both, as we can guess, a scar, witness to an injury and stitches in repair: “These portraits of men are a way of equalizing men and women in the same suffering, that of violence, believes Danièle Boucon. It follows the 2022 exhibition “Des maux à l’image” on the violence suffered by women in which ten female portraits highlighted abused bodies.”
Violated lives
Portraits for unique stories accompanied by often very harsh testimonies like that of this man “whose experience is made up only of sexual assaults and who reminds us that unfortunately this does not only happen to women”. Which of course does not excuse anything and does not reduce the suffering of women: “These men have suffered for an infinite time in their lives from incest, parental violence, pedophile acts, sometimes also blows from their partner, notes Danièle Boucon. These men have filed complaints that have never been resolved, in the same way as women”. “There is perhaps only one point that distinguishes these two painful situations, concludes this photographer: the image of male virility which does not yet authorize men in 2024 to admit their state of victimhood”.
