Four Photographers Explore the Body's Limits in Paris Exhibitions

Four concurrent exhibitions in Paris examine the body as a site of artificiality, absence, decay, and transformation. Valérie Belin's series at Galerie Xippas (December 16, 2006 – February 17, 2007) presents marble-white faces and black subjects with synthetic hair and colored contact lenses, exploring what the critic calls 'dé-visagéité' or un-facedness. At Galerie RX (January 30 – March 21), Sun Ji-Yeong's 'À distance' features gray-toned interiors where figures avert their gaze, headphones and empty cages suggesting solitude. Yves Trémorin's 'Recent' at Galerie Gilles Peyroulet & Cie (January 13 – February 23) juxtaposes earlier black-and-white 'La Mort' with new works like 'Le Merle' (a dried blackbird) and 'L'Huître' (an oyster), using backlighting to blur presence and absence. At MEP (January 10 – March 4), Martial Cherrier's 'Fly or Die' presents miniature silhouettes of his bodybuilder physique encased in boxes with butterfly wings, while videos document steroid use. Cherrier's work, informed by his father's baking (yeast as metaphor for expansion), critiques the anti-naturalist bodybuilding project. The exhibitions collectively interrogate beauty, mortality, and the limits of representation.