EROS VS HER CLIT. Visual earthquake at BAS Gallery, Berlin

The exhibition “EROS VS HER CLIT”’s kick-off sets the bar high with an uncensored homerun. Artists Diana Matilda Crișan (Bucharest) and Peter Feiler (Berlin) enter the art ring  for a decisive game at BAS Gallery, in Berlin. A showdown on the theme of feminine body in public and private spheres, curated by Elena Ghițoiu (curator and Artevezi chief editor) and Igor Zaidel (curator and gallerist).There is no censorship in what unravels at ”EROS VS HER CLIT” : sado-masochistic games, intercourse in unbridled positions, strap-ons, allusions to hell. With ”EROS VS HER CLIT”, we bump into the mythology of feminine sexuality, caught in a vice between mondan fetishism and its subject’s personal sentiment.   The exhibition puts into perspective the multiplicity of aspects surrounding the theme of feminine sex. It plays with references to the inferno predestined to feminine licentiousness in a middle-age mindset, along with an auto-biographical pro-feminist activism.A masterly technique, images of an extreme aggressivity, both artists stand face to face on the gallery’s walls with two visions diametrically opposed when it comes to the status of the feminine body. On one side, a single painting, which could be a detail from Fra Angelico’s The Last Judgement restyled by the XXIst century. In the painting, Peter Feiler exposes a woman tortured by perverse games, in a phantasmagoric, erotic-grotesque style. On the other side, a series of embroideries symbolizing the woman’s perception of her own intimate fantasies, with which Diana Matilda Crișan seems to denounce the exterior gazes’ effects on her. “There is a marked opposition between the object-woman as a product of social thinking, painted here by a man, and opposite to it, the woman’s consciousness regarding her status, rendered by her own vision. (Elena Ghițoiu, curator)           The clash does not stop at the subject, it goes on in confrontation of the two techniques used by the artists. As if everything was destined to divide those two, the noble medium of painting is here defied by experimental textiles. We find again the altercation between the “official” domain of fine arts and the obsolete one, of decorative arts, still stuffed in the handicraft category. This reminds us of the uncertain state of textile use in arts, given that it’s still automatically associated with a “womanly occupation” by some.“If you look at it carefully, there is no woman or man in my artworks, just two people who switch roles: both wear strap-ons, one at a time”, reveals artist Diana Matilda Crișan. In other words: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic destiny defines the figure that the human female acquires in society; it is civilization as a whole that develops this product, intermediate between female and eunuch, which one calls feminine.” (Simone de Beauvoir, The second sex, 1949). 

 We can only ask ourselves how feminism would dialog with Peter Feiler’s intention to shock the public through his dark scenes, made attractive by fralsy emotive colours. “I do not want to change people, but maybe I can make them uneasy through provocation which has the potential to inspire them to recollect something good within themselves”, says the artist when describing his work (source). His universe is composed of narrative factors, translated into visions of a world wounded by mankind's atrocities, with claustrophobic visual constructions rendered in a precise and delicate touch.  The exhibition’s opening will take place on the 10th of September at BAS Gallery in Berlin. On this occasion, the ones who will travel there will be able to discover Soldiner district, which shelters numerous art galleries. Most of them are, just like BAS Gallery, part of Die Kolonie Wedding association. An excerpt from Berlin’s art life, considered one of the most important contemporary art centers.