EXQUISITE CORPSE: REIMAGINING COLLISIONS OF VISION
Cadavre Exquis – or "Exquisite Corpse" – a term derived from surrealism, traditionally refers to the collaborative creation of artwork, where each participant contributes their part without knowledge of the others’ contributions. This exhibition reinterprets that concept through contemporary photography, where three artists with common questions merge their photographs to form new images. united on a single print, while playing on the positioning and proportions of each fragment.
Each artist brings a distinct perspective and approach, coming together to spontaneously create works that blur the lines between genres, styles, and subjects. These photographs are more than simple combinations; they are reimagined worlds, embodying a collective vision rather than any one artist's personal signature. In this way, the concept of artistic ownership is dissolved, resulting in photographs that reflect a collective identity rather than an individual one.
Cadavre Exquis delves into the power of chance, intuition, and collaboration in a world shaped by digital manipulation and media remixing. The works invite viewers into a space where different realities converge, inviting them to reconsider boundaries between photography, authorship, and creativity. The exhibition evokes the fluidity of imagination, offering a visual space where fragmented realities come together to form a new, unified whole.
This series, born out of instinctive creative processes, uses self-portraits, body studies, and archival photographs to explore the complex relationship between a woman and her body. Often reframed or left in their original form, these images are selected and assembled randomly, telling a new narrative that challenges conventional understandings of the human body. the project asks questions about identity, physicality, and ownership, reflecting on the body as both a sanctuary and an ever-evolving entity.
Through Cadavre Exquis, the artists embark on a journey of intuitive creation, putting aside reason in favour of exploring visceral, instinctual connections. The result is a collection that invites viewers to reconsider the body’s role as a site of both personal refuge and external influence — revealing the hidden and often unnoticed aspects of the human form. Ultimately, this series explores the tension between the body’s tangible reality and its conceptual potential, pushing the limits of visual storytelling.
In this heterogeneous exhibition, Ketevan Gvinepadze presents a fusion of mediums that explores the relationship between clay and photography, two raw and primary artistic languages that converge in an intimate and visceral dialogue. Gvinepadze’s work investigates the interaction between the materiality of clay, in its most intuitive form, and the imperfect and unpretentious representation of the human body, stripping flesh and the body of their traditional aesthetics to create a new visual language.
This photographic series of self-portraits, initiated in 2014, occupies a central place in this exhibition. This project, which has evolved over the course of a decade, reveals the duality between concealment and revelation, playing with the viewer’s anticipation while challenging conventional conceptions of the body. What usually remains hidden is revealed here, transforming the human body into a conceptual canvas that transcends its physical form, taking photography beyond its two-dimensional plane with the help of the moldable properties of clay.
In dialogue with photography, Gvinepadze introduces clay as a material that resonates with the ideas of fragility, solidity, lightness and stillness, establishing a relationship between the materiality of the body and that of the clay itself. The ceramics, as an extension of her investigation of the body, become both a physical and symbolic support, reinforcing the artist’s exploration of the tensions between the imperfect and the perfect. In this encounter of mediums, ceramics and photography are not opposites, but rather complementary, finding a point of continuity—an extension of sight and touch.
Text by Claudia Uranga
The artist behind "Fit" approaches the project from a deeply personal perspective, grappling with body dysmorphia rooted from her cultural background, which adds layers of significance to the exploration of body image and self-analysis present in the project. By stepping back and examining her figure from a distance, the artist seeks to gain a new understanding of her very own somatic existence and consciousness.
Through the female lens, "Fit" transcends traditional notions and derives benefit from the multiple meanings of the word "fit." Beyond its literal connotations of physical fitness, the project examines the idea of fitting oneself into societal norms, roles, and expectations. Each photograph in the series is composed to evoke a sense of introspection and agency. Through the use of the flesh and subtle symbolism, the images challenge traditional power dynamics and celebrate the strength and resilience.
Ultimately, "Fit" is a visual representation of an on-going research—it's an exacting exploration of identity, autonomy, and self-acceptance. It invites viewers to question their own perceptions of aesthetics and to embrace the inherent complexity and diversity of the
human experience.
Currently, the project comprises over 30 images, several of which are permanently represented by Fotografía Gallery in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Memories, photo archives, traditional food and landscapes with interior details soon became the centre of focus, matching the past with contemporary.
Published in Purple Fashion Magazine - Travel.
Full article
In the early 1980s designer Loris Azzarro crafted a made-to-measure black dress which was sewn to be worn in a photoshoot for a Playboy France cover featuring Olivia’s mother as a model and shot by James Baes.
Her mother only ever wore it for the photo shoot. Unfortunately, the actual cover photo is nowhere to be found.
It is a hand-me-down from a mother to daughter.
In this project, Olivia reflects on the very personal, intimate connection of the dress with her mother, whose female body wore it some forty years ago before her for a very specific purpose. Perplexed by the implications of why it was crafted to begin with — a 1980s Playboy France Cover and its destined male gaze — she mulls over what it means to be a muse, an object of admiration. Combining personal impressions and autobiographical fragments with site-specific images from where Olivia now lives in rural Catalunya, Black Magic (The Thread) tells the story of a mother-daughter connection through the specific lens of female sexuality and image. Deciding the dress holds a complex type of magic particular to women and their fraught place in and outside of the spotlight, the project is an ode to her mother and the dress which reunites them, opening a discussion around what it means to be as pretty as a picture and questioning those aesthetics by revealing mistakes and imperfections.
Essay by Olivia Baes
Original images and photography: Ketevan Gvinepadze Mixed media collages: Olivia Baes, Ketevan Gvinepadze