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| Olympe de Gouges Gallery/credit: Veronique Mistiaen |
“DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN AND THE FEMALE
CITIZEN”
These red letters (in
French) on a large poster in the window of the new art gallery rue de l’Odéon in
Paris 6th stopped me in my tracks.
I read the poster: it was about an avant-garde woman who
cherished freedom and opposed discrimination, violence and
oppression in all its forms. And
she wrote the remarkable “Declaration of the rights of woman and the female citizen” in 1791. Her name was Olympe de Gouges. I am ashamed to say that I didn’t know her.
Intrigued, I stepped inside. The lovely gallery’s manager,
Victoria Otero, told me that Olympe de Gouges was a political activist and one
of France’s first feminists. Although she was born in a modest family, she
found her political voice by writing an astonishing number of pamphlets and
posters that she freely disseminated around Paris. Her pamphlets promoted bold, new ideas, such a
total equality between sexes, female emancipation and abolition of the death
penalty and slavery. Ahead of her time,
she was guillotined for her ideas in 1793.
The Olympe de Gouges gallery was conceived by a French
entrepreneur whose offices were in the old building where Olympe de Gouges
lived - on Servandoni street near St Sulpice Church, in
the heart of the historic 6th arrondissement. To pay tribute to
her, he not only placed a commemorative
plaque on the façade of his building, but decided to open an art gallery a few
steps away.
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| Olympe de Gouges's house/credit: Veronique Mistiaen |
New in the golden
triangle of Parisian galleries, the gallery Olympe de Gouges wants to “reinstate
Olympe de Gouges, talk about this woman
too avant-garde for her time and pay tribute to her strength and convictions,”
says Otero.
The gallery features
artists who, like Olympe de Gouges, have a critical view on our contemporary
world, fight against all forms of inequality and are not afraid to take
risks. As the art market tends to favour
men, they also want to provide a space for women artists. Exhibitions change monthly, which allows the
gallery to showcase a wide variety of artists from all over the world.
Until November 11,
the gallery featured the Sino-Irish artist Mia Funk. One of her most famous –
and controversial – piece, "An Audience with the Queen" (Price Thames
and Hudson 2010), shows the British monarch and Lucian Freud seated naked on a couch
sipping tea and eating Pot Noodles. The
work was meant to be exhibited in Dublin for the Queen’s first state visit, but
had to be quickly taken down following
protests.
Their November
exhibition will focus on immigration with Marc Bellini, a French photographer
artist of Corsican origin, who through herbarium photograms traces the routes
of migrants to Europe.
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