Férocité à Domicile

Férocité à domicile explores the ambivalence of the maternal bond through the work of seven artists - Chantal Akerman, Tolia Astakhishvili (with Zurab Astakhishvili, Simon Lässig and Maka Sanadze), Cudelice Brazelton IV, Rosa Joly, Harilay Rabenjamina, Rosemarie Trockel and Sebastian Wiegand. With sensitive and contrasting approaches, these artists intimately grasp the way in which this complex relationship shapes our presence in the world. Between presence and absence, tenderness and dispossession, singularity and the transmission of social constructs, these works sketch out a nuanced cartography of the maternal bond. Love, far from being an absolute bulwark, spares neither the unconscious contradictions inherent in parenthood nor dysfunctional relationships. While society (in a traditional nuclear family) assigns the mother the role of guardian of the home, the father in return often occupies a marginal position. The question of love cannot therefore be dissociated from that of the place assigned to the mother in a patriarchal society: what behaviour does this assignment engender? What are the repercussions?