Jean-Luc Verna's Monographic Exhibition at Faux Mouvement, Metz

The Faux Mouvement art center in Metz presents 'Vous n'êtes pas un peu beaucoup maquillé ? – Non', a monographic exhibition of Jean-Luc Verna featuring works from 1994 to 2013. The show includes drawings, sculptures, and photographs, centered around a five-meter-high steel magic wand. Verna employs techniques like drawing, tracing, photocopying, and erasing with trichloroethylene, often embellishing with makeup, pastels, and accessories such as plastic flowers, wigs, and knives. His references span academic art, comics, and rock music, blending figures like Robert Crumb, Félicien Rops, Théodore Géricault, Raymond Pettibon, Alfred Kubin, and the X-Men. Punk singer Siouxsie Sioux appears in multiple works, including a black stone drawing on black paper with makeup and ostrich feathers (Jeanne-Janet Préault, Black Widow, 2011) and as a powerful magician in allegorical drawings (Rends!, 2013). A separate cabinet of curiosities displays delicate glass cockrings in vitrines, alongside black-and-white photographs of Verna nude. In '50 Poses utiles pour le dessin', he reenacts poses from art history and rock bands like Rammstein, The Creatures, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Nina Hagen. The exhibition runs from September 10 to October 15, 2013.