Then comes a second question: what does it mean to be an artist within our society? For this, the words of Forough Farrokhzad come to our aid, reminding us that identity is not a given, but is actually shaped through our actions:”I want to be defined by what I make, not by what society expects me to be. My hands are small, but they build my own truth."

With this in mind, and forgetting all the polarizing forces that are disrupting our society, we talked with the protagonists of FANTASTIC FEMALES: Anaïs Goupy, Mirjam Roth, Anna Nezhnaya, Maud Paul, Anna Rüstig, and Wei Zhu. While the curatorial framework investigates the work of the six artists without categorization, there is nonetheless an underlying tone linking them all. All their works address, in various ways, the body as a central stage and the role of technology in our lives.

Anna Rüstig addresses through her bas-reliefs the history of this artistic medium, while bringing it back to contemporary times. The monochrome gives way to bright colors, and the conversation shifts to intimate moments. In a powerful subversion of a historically monumental medium, her series of jackets as bas-reliefs is an homage to her mother and the all-too-familiar phrase parents usually use: “Put on some clothes or you’ll catch a cold”.

Wei Zhu also addresses intimacy and family relationships in her paintings, trying to deal with memory and to let go of troubling memories from the past. The pastel palette colors a series of everyday scenes, uniting them inside a single frame.

Her practice deals with the difficulties that lie in getting away from one’s roots and defining a space for oneself in the world. Particularly compelling are the details hidden in the canvases, even in their corners, reminding us that beauty often lies in the details.

Anna Nezhnaya explores sensuality more directly by mixing it with the history of art. One of the neon works she exhibited in the show represents a famous sculpture by Jeff Koons, made while he was married to Cicciolina, an Italian former porn star and politician. The work shows them enveloped in a hug, naked, unveiling a very intimate moment and crystallizing it in art.

The artwork itself then became something completely different. After Koons and Cicciolina’s divorce, lengthy legal battles started over copyright and intellectual property. This reminds us, once again, of how vulnerable a woman's own image can become, showing that the representation of women and their own selves remains a constant battleground.

Working with portraits and unsettlement, but in a completely different way, is the practice of Anaïs Goupy. Her sensual and amorphous shapes, flowing inside her paintings, actually hide a reasoning on human bodies, on how society perceives them, and on how we treat them. With her paintings, she also addresses and directly works with one of the other pressing topics of our times: the role of artificial intelligence. Her bodies, read through these lenses, become something else, shifting shape and focus to what they hold within.

The exhibition tried to celebrate women in different ways, showing also a fluid spectrum of womanhood and of life experiences. With this comes one last question: what does it mean to be both a woman and an artist? We finish how we started, with Simone de Beauvoir’s wise words: “To desire freedom is also to desire the freedom of others, but to create is to refuse to accept the world as it is given to us." And this is probably one of the deepest meanings of making art.