Dress the Monster with Ornaments: The Nave, 2025

Dress the Monster with Ornaments: The Nave emerged from three months of daily visits to the Musée d’Orsay in 2023, at a moment when the institution was preparing for major architectural transformation. I used my body as a measuring tool to map the central nave and to observe how visitors moved through it, where they paused, and where circulation became strained. Blue dots mark moments of stillness, dashed lines trace paths of movement, and red lines appear when tension, frustration, or blockage entered the space. These spatial notations are layered with fragments of overheard conversation, gestures, clothing, signage, and arrows, forming a record of how bodies, architecture, and authority interact.

Underlying this work is the nineteenth century’s obsession with the female body, not only as subject, but as surface, as site, as ornament, and as spectacle. I am interested in the layered economies of looking: the collective gaze of the crowd, the authoritative gaze of the painter, the consuming gaze of the Instagrammer, and the often silenced gaze of the portrayed. In the central nave, a quiet confrontation unfolds. On one side, Académisme. Idealised, mythologised, perfected. Bodies arranged for pleasure, painted in warm tones of compliance and erotic passivity. On the other, Réalisme. Political, resistant, unpolished. The tones cool, almost sallow. A face does not look away. She meets our gaze. And she refuses to disappear.