From September 20 to October 3, the Hotel La Louisiane will be hosting Mathilde Marc’s exhibition “Rôles modèles”. Photographs by female artists taken in various locations, including La Louisiane, highlight the beauty and energy of older women who “have been” and “still are”.
From Thursday September 19 to Thursday October 3, the walls of the reception area, the staircase and the Salle Simone de Beauvoir on the second floor will be the setting for Mathilde’s project, which was already seen in Albi several months ago.
But for Louisiana, Mathilde took up her camera again to immortalize the presences within its walls, including Gabrielle Lazure and Elli Medeiros, as well as Eva Ionesco. More than twenty portraits of these role-models have already been taken: Ariane Ascaride, Marianne Basler, Christine Citti, Fejria Dliba, Léa Drucker, Maria de Medeiros, Marie Desgranges, Nathalie Duong, Françoise Fabian… Mathilde calls a “Role Model” a person whose career or work enables others, often younger people, to identify with them and project themselves. The term was coined by sociologist Robert King Merton, and is often used in cultural and women’s circles.
Beauty incarnate
Mathilde’s women are shown in their vitality; they are rendered foreign to the straitjacket of aesthetic conventions, glamour and seduction found in many fashion and advertising clichés. The artist works on this relationship: the embodiment of a style, a particular tone specific to each woman, the fact that they can inspire, influence and surprise, without being limited to being mere models for looks, moods or a place.
They are the “heroines” of the image, active, not frozen. The Hôtel La Louisiane, which for two hundred years has welcomed female artists and intellectuals including Juliette Gréco, Albertine Sarrazin and Simone de Beauvoir, is honored to host this project within its walls. ” These images echo the history of La Louisiane, a being of stone that has passed its milestones in time, transcending our own temporality and remaining an institution for Saint-Germain-des-Prés and beyond,” stresses Charlotte Saliou, the event’s organizer.
No age limit for a role model
“With the actresses I was able to photograph (…), we formed bonds and I became friends with several of them. However, when I showed this work to different broadcasters, I was often told that it was an interesting subject, but not a ‘sellable’ one. The age of women is a persistent taboo. Although numerous essays and novels have appeared in bookshops in recent years on the theme of age and women, there are no photos on the covers of these books. There are always drawings and illustrations. We talk about age, we write about it, but we don’t show it. All visible signs of aging are erased, hidden, filtered.”
Mathilde also takes care of styling her role models, influenced by the cabaret atmosphere and all the fantasies she discovers through encounters and research. Costumes turn these women-artists into muses, into “giants”. Fabric allows many transformations and flirtations with the supernatural, a time neither present nor past, a time of possibilities and the imaginary.
Anne Cobalty
Exhibition from Thursday, September 19 to Thursday, October 3, 2024
Hôtel La Louisiane, in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés,
60 rue de Seine, 6th arrondissement, Paris
