A private view

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The viewer becomes voyeur at Richard Saltoun’s Temptations of Pierre Molinier Featuring over 50 of the artist’s works created from 1952 onwards, the exhibition is mostly comprised of Molinier’s  home developed silver gelatine photographs.  There are also several paintings and drawings, but it his photography around which the exhibition revolves.

Molinier referred to his studio as his “boudoir” and this intimacy is palpable in his work. Using dolls, models, and self-portraits spliced together with photo montage, Molinier’s idiosyncratic body of work reminds one of the Moulin Rouge on hallucinogens. The artist was known for his excesses in both his lifestyle and artistic methods. This is evidenced in such unorthodox practises as copulating with his dolls between photoshoots and adding his own semen to his paint.

Born in 1900 in Agen, France, Molinier moved to Bordeaux in the 1920s and continued working there until he died. It was during this decade that he was inducted into a secret esoteric society, an experience that surely informed his work as he consistently dealt with the arcane and the forbidden. He belonged to other artistic societies, but eventually formed a bond with Andre Breton, who introduced him to the Surrealists.

Molinier, who was originally a painter, took up photography for his own personal entertainment during the 1950s and turned his attention to it for the rest of his career.  The way he engaged props, people, and positions in many of the works feels more appropriate for a cloistered bedroom .  So singular are Molinier’s titillations that there is no question his goal was to please himself, not a broader audience.

It is hard not to feel like a Peeping Tom, interrupting Molinier’s own personal peep show. The photographic images are smaller in size than contemporary gallery goers may be used to (the largest is 24cm in width), thus it is necessary to stand close to the work to determine what is depicted in each scene. What appears to be a leggy woman turns out to be Molinier in drag, often engaging in auto-erotic acts that even contemporary viewers may find jarring crystallised on film.

This sentiment surely carried through to publishers during Molinier’s lifetime as there was much resistance to printing his book, The Chaman and Its Creatures. The book, considered an autobiography of sorts, was not published until the ‘90s.

While Molinier’s contemporaries, the Surrealists, were hardly known for their conservatism, he took things one step further. Instead of representing the risqué, Molinier did it (some may even argue, overdid it). For example, Dali painted an image of a high heel used for sodomy, Molinier actually made one and photographed himself using it for this purpose.

Molinier is often referred to as a “maker of things” and all the garments used in his shoots were hand-altered and customised by him. However, his craftwork goes beyond the altering the sartorial. For example, he created erotic contraptions. An especially unique image from the exhibition is a self-potrait of Molinier performing fellatio on himself using a set of stocks he constructed to facilitate the act.

To the uninformed viewer, the Richard Saltoun Gallery may seem an unlikely destination for work considering the gallery has a special interest in feminist artists and their work. However, Molinier’s depictions of women’s body parts and apparent hyper-sexualisation of the female form are not meant to objectify  women. Molinier spent the last ten years of his life exploring ‘subconscious transexual desires’ and often altered his images to create hermaphrodites and androgynous figures.

The contemporary artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, who coined the term pandrogyny, cites Molinier’s work as an inspiration. P-Orridge explores the boundaries of gender and identity in his efforts to morph with his female partner into a single identity. Cindy Sherman, whose self-portraits are lauded by appreciators of feminist art, was also influenced by Molinier.

The artist died in 1976 due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound, delivered whilst engaging in an auto-erotic act while watching himself in the mirror. This was the ultimate final act of performance art for a man whose favoured audience was himself.

by Yasmin Bilbeisi

Temptations of Pierre Molinier is on at Richard Saltoun until October 2

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Glass Online art writer

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