"Sexual Odyssey"
A room full of eroticism, ecstasy, erection… and cats.
A first glance shows mainly one thing: nudity. Nudity through sex scenes in various positions and interiors; nudity through erect and flaccid phalli and women satisfying themselves lustfully; as well as nudity of everyday life. Individual images are combined to form an overall collage that is not limited to the specific underground but spread on the walls and into the room. The figure of a naked, resting man gazing at the viewer drew visitors relentlessly into her work from the demure exhibition carpet. The erotic scenes of togetherness are framed with sentences such as ‘My love I am your guitar’, ‘Erotism is the answer to death […]’ or ‘Stop being so dramatic and talk about the boys’. Then there are paintings of landscapes that continue onto the wall, with purple and green coloured areas to suggest heaven and earth. A large black cat is placed in the middle – everyday scenes and images of nature that draw the viewer out of their excitation.
It is not surprising that the eye first perceives the sensual components in A Sexual Odyssey, and probably also not that the everyday scenes with the depicted nudity are seen as erotic. We linger on the explicit scenes that evoke memories of the sexual act and the tender, exhausted moments afterwards. Here, however, our own gaze needs to be trained: The work deals with more than sexual acts and has a complexity of content. Roger-Lacan describes it as a playful diary that celebrates a joyful fantasy while representing women’s freedom and sexuality. However, the work is not meant to be autobiographical. She is more interested in the human spirit itself and what it goes through in its odyssey, although she uses her own experiences. At the same time, she deals with conditions that she does not understand: desire, social interactions, death and the power of imagination.
The idea for the work was born at the beginning of the year with a ‘map’ that she created to explore her thoughts and feelings ‘[…] to release an energy’. The selection of the many small works represent fragments of intimate life, including longings, lived-out freedoms and thoughts about relationships. These are combined with scenes of death, which are initially associated with the pun ‘la petite mort’. Instead, they depict the existential fear of death and emptiness, which Roger- Lacan breaks through by showing life-fulfilling motifs. The visual axis in A Sexual Odyssey is drawn towards the centre of the picture as an anchor point, which is crowned by the title of the work and a large linear heart. In the centre there is a portrait of a figure with a pink mouth playing with a phallus. Between the heart there are words and sentences – ‘sweet memories’ and ‘movies in my mind’ describe the escape from these fears through the world of imagination – an element that runs through her work. Roger-Lacan does not completely reject the concept of eroticism to describe her works, but rather describes them as sensually liberating. She does not focus on the sexual act per se, but rather on the meaning of libido, which she understands as feelings of desire, passion and impulsiveness. In doing so, she focuses on the reasons and stimuli that make us feel alive. Her thoughts about this are depicted through colours, fantasies about her own and other people’s bodies and everyday pop-cultural objects – an interplay between memories and experiences that emphasises this feeling.
Leonie Cecilia Pietrovicci
about Madeleine Roger-Lacan – Galerie EIGEN + ART at NEW POSITION at Art Cologne 2024