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The gallery Les Filles du Calvaire in Paris currently explores the complex universe of Britney Spears. The exhibition continues until September 21, 2024.
Once upon a time, a 17-year-old girl became a global idol with her hit Baby One More Time. A fairy tale? Not quite. The gallery Les Filles du Calvaire tells a different story in its exhibition Failures, featuring fifteen artists using various mediums; painting, collage, sculpture, photography. It chronicles the tumultuous journey of Britney Spears, a hypersexualized and hyper-mediatized child star turned cash machine, placed under her family’s conservatorship for 13 years. This tale is far from smooth and light.
Curator Marty de Montereau draws a surprising parallel throughout his exhibition between the pop icon and the heroine of Alice in Wonderland. Their common thread? Falling into an absurd parallel reality in which they become trapped. A world as trashy as it is kitsch.
Britney Spears’ gaze follows the visitors: from the entrance, she stares through Mark Seliger’s immense black and white photograph. Beside her, a gallery of portraits of young women, in small format, such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Kate Moss, mingles with illustrious unknowns, all painted by Katinka Lampe. Further along, an oil on canvas by Lise Stoufflet reveals the blue eye of a giant, hidden behind a violet curtain.
Gradually, a world as trashy as it is kitsch unveils itself backstage. The manor of the so-called “princess of pop” has been modeled in 3D, ebony black, by Corentin Darré in a piece titled The Screaming Cabin. Sculptures made from chrome false nails by Frances Goodman complete this fairy-tale yet horrific decor. It depicts a maltreated childhood, where a multicolored mountain of small pills, sculpted by the South African artist, stands next to a deluge of plush toys, photographed by Émilie Pitoiset.
Scattered throughout the exhibit, Julia Haumont’s delicate sculptures also convey the boredom and sadness of the young icon, thrust into a world of malevolent adults. These ceramic girls seem to internally scream the words My loneliness is killing me from the iconic song Baby One More Time. These words also appear in neon letters in a piece by Léo Fourdrinier. An insistent refrain that became the anthem of a generation, expressing the American singer’s distress. But also, implicitly, the failure of a society that watched her downfall live. Hence the title: Failures.
