(Credits: Kamille-Leveque / Courtesy of NegPos Galerie)
A feminist art exhibition in the south of France has been destroyed by vandals, who defaced the works on display by drawing phalluses and sexual images over the walls.
Criminals broke into the Cyprine Benzin exhibition on display at the NegPos art and photography centre in Nîmes on the night between April 25th and 26th, destroying the pieces being shown due to their feminist message.
The artist behind the exhibition, Kamille Lévêque Jégo, had curated the photo-based pieces as a celebration of women’s voices and empowerment, but since it opened on April 11th had been victim to two malicious attacks, the latter of which destroyed 30 to 40 items in the exhibition.
The NegPos centre director, Patrice Loubon, told The Art Newspaper on May 5th: “It is really upsetting to see how the masculinist backlash can have such an influence in our society. We have seen verbal protests against feminist exhibitions before, including in our centre […] But never anything like this.”
He noted that a previous attack had been launched on the exhibition a week prior, in which a window to the gallery was forced open and a vandal destroyed one work.
Jégo also told a local French TV station that: “They cannot stand to see representations of women showing strength. The immature and silly drawings of phalluses are not an excuse for such vandalism.”
The artist has been working on the Cyprine Benzin exhibition since 2014, which she explains on her website uses photography and videos to follow a “gang of girls” asserting their “flamboyant femininity”. It has been displayed three times prior to this since 2018 in other locations across France, none of which have experienced such acts of vandalism.
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