Gloria Friedmann's 'Play back d'Eden' at Fondation Maeght

Gloria Friedmann's exhibition 'Play back d'Eden' was held at Fondation Maeght in Saint Paul de Vence from March 30 to June 16, 2013. The show opened with 'L'Intouchable' (2007), a life-size white sculpture of a man with a lock on his forehead and a key necklace, inviting visitors into a timeless theater. Friedmann, a German-born artist living in France who began with photography, explores the human relationship to nature, Earth, and animals without claiming to be a message artist. In the catalog, she told Catherine Millet: 'What I wish is to propose to others an experience, even possibilities of different life.' Her work 'Absurdistan 3' (2007) uses authentic SS boots and trousers to form a swastika, critiquing 20th-century aberrations. Other pieces include 'Elle,' a female body topped with branches, and 'Matrix,' a woman carrying the Earth. Friedmann works across media: color on glass, charcoal on canvas, clay from her garden on plaster and steel. She creates installations with skulls connected to televisions, dismantles computers to form emblematic couples, and places Mitterrand and Kohl in an aquarium. The exhibition, curated by Olivier Kaeppelin, revealed the diversity of her practice without being a retrospective.