THE INFINITE WOMAN

Strong, lustful, fatal, loving, demonic, tempting, or mythical, women have been represented in many ways over the centuries, often in response to a patriarchal vision of the world. Exploring identity, sexuality, pleasure, and power, The Infinite Woman sheds light on the ways in which women have been viewed from the earliest myths to the most contemporary and subversive representations. Here, art liberates women’s bodies from Western beauty canons, offering reinvented models that challenge not only social norms but also the limits of art itself and its oppressive categories.

Organized thematically, the exhibition draws on ideas of myths and monsters in the representation of women to reflect on womanhood in all its many guises. Moving surefootedly between images of goddesses to scrutinizing the idea of the femme fatale, from disruptive ideas of motherhood to paying homage to the power of women’s desire, from beguiling fairytale creatures to cyborgs highlighting their emancipatory potential, to elevating (dis)obedient bodies that upend Western conventions of beauty while reflecting on the body as a vessel, the exhibition closes with a section devoted to sirens and anti-icons to explore how gender is shape-shifting in the 21st century. Ultimately, the works in the exhibition disrupt conventional ideas of womanhood to reflect on feminine power and how the representation of women has shaped global cultural attitudes.

Pablo Picasso

«Lying naked woman playing with a cat»

1964

Billie Zangewa

«The rebirth of Black Venus»

2010

Richard Prince

«Nurse in Hollywood»

2004

Visitors to the exhibition are invited to take a thematic tour of over eighty works and to encounter female figures that are as familiar as they are unsettling: sacred and nurturing women (Sandro Botticelli, Mary Beth Edelson, Loie Hollowell), free-spirited sirens (Kiki Smith, Chris Ofili, Sofia Mitsola), spider-women (Louise Bourgeois, Frida Orupabo), enhanced cyborgs (Lee Bul, Vivian Greven, Tishan Hsu), and objects of desire (Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso, Thomas Ruff).

Sandro Botticelli

«La Vierge à la Grenade»

Tempera sur panneau de peuplier, 1445-1510

Roy Lichtenstein

«Reflections on Jessica Helms»

1990

MARION VERBOOM

«Clito»

2022

Bringing together over sixty artists from different historical periods, geopolitical spaces, and aesthetic currents—and with plural gender identities, the exhibition offers a dialogue between contemporaries such as Wangechi Mutu, Lisa Yuskavage, and Michael Armitage, and major historical artists including Louise Bourgeois, Egon Schiele, and Judy Chicago. Using techniques as varied as painting, drawing, photography, video, collage, sculpture, ceramics, and textiles, the artists conjure up new fantasies and give life to new female narratives, imbued with power (ORLAN, Martine Gutierrez, Zanele Muholi) and pleasure (Laure Provost, Betty Tompkins, Dorothy Iannone, John Currin).

JESSICA STOLLER

«Untitled»

2015

PALOMA PROUDFOOT

«Gardening»

2024

KIKI SMITH

«Dark Water»

2023

Just as a stay on an island can transform our relationship with the world and with reality, The Infinite Woman exhibition at Villa Carmignac offers an artistic and interpersonal journey, an invitation to redefine norms and areas of expression, all conceived as a poetic and uninhibited celebration of the elusive multiplicity of the feminine.

We propose to continue our journey with the artists of Art Most:

Djénina Hagenburger

«Who has never dreamed of (Diptych)»

Price 1,800 €. France

Mike Sol

«Disappointment»

Price 3,350 €. Spain

Afrozaa Jamil Konka

«Acid-4»

Price 1,750 €. India

Vasilij Lorem

«Darling, sleep!»

Price 1,400 €. Israel

O'Dwyer Alina

«Grace Jones»

Price 2,450 €. UAE

Glazyeva Olesya

«Flow»

Price 5,050 €. Russia

About Villa Carmignac

Villa Carmignac is located on the island of Porquerolles opposite the French Riviera, which is a national park. The villa was built in the 1980s by the famous architect Henri Vidal. Collector Edouard Carmignac turned it into a place dedicated to art.

The central element of the villa’s architectural design is the water ceiling. The light transforms through the moving water, creating an exciting experience.

Spacious exhibition spaces are surrounded by a huge sculpture garden overlooking the vineyards. The garden, designed by Louis Benech, contains about fifteen sculptures.

At the entrance, a polite museum employee asks you to leave your shoes on special shelves, and visitors get an unforgettable barefoot experience, which allows them to get even closer to art.

Villa Carmignac

«Water Ceiling»

The centerpiece of the villa's design

BRUCE NAUMAN

«One hundred fish fountain»

2005

Eippe Heim

«The path of emotion»

2018

About Edouard Carmignac

Édouard Carmignac is a French entrepreneur, Chairman of Carmignac, an independent company he founded in 1989 and which stands today as one of the main European players in asset management. After spending his childhood in Peru, he studied Economics at the Sorbonne and graduated with an MBA from Columbia University in New York, USA. He started his career in an investment bank and began to take an interest in contemporary art as he got acquainted with the New York scene by patronizing Andy Warhol’s Factory. The energy of those years still guides his spirit as a nonconformist collector to this day.

In 2000, he created the Fondation Carmignac, a corporate foundation that supports contemporary artists and manages an international collection of over 300 artworks. In 2018, the Villa Carmignac opened on the island of Porquerolles in order to share the collection with the public and organize cultural and artistic events. Also passionate about photography, Edouard Carmignac created in 2009 the Carmignac Photojournalism Award, which aims to support the independence of photographers by giving them the means to produce a thematic report in areas outside the limelight.

About Fondation Carmignac Collection

The Fondation Carmignac collection includes more than 300 works of art. The collection features works by both emerging artists and famous masters such as Sandro Botticelli, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter, Yves Klein, and Doug Aitken. Additionally, the collection includes:

1. El Anatsui – A Ghanaian artist recognized for his large-scale sculptures made from recycled materials, exploring themes of consumption and waste.
2. John Baldessari – A conceptual artist whose works often combine found photography and text to create witty and thought-provoking pieces.
3. Miquel Barceló – A Spanish painter and sculptor whose work is characterized by its textured surfaces and often explores natural forms and processes.
4. Alexander Calder – Renowned for his innovative mobiles and kinetic sculptures that introduced movement into modern art.
5. Maurizio Cattelan – An Italian artist known for his satirical and provocative sculptures, such as “La Nona Ora” depicting Pope John Paul II struck by a meteorite.
6. George Condo – An American painter whose works blend classical techniques with contemporary subject matter to create grotesque, hybrid figures.
7. Willem De Kooning – A leading figure in abstract expressionism, De Kooning’s energetic and gestural paintings explore the human figure and landscape.
8. Marlene Dumas – A South African artist known for her emotionally charged portraits that address themes of identity, race, and sexuality.
9. Jenny Holzer – An artist who uses text-based works to explore themes of power, identity, and consumerism through large-scale installations and projections.
10. Andreas Gursky – A German photographer known for his large-scale, highly detailed images that often depict contemporary landscapes and architecture.
11. Zhang Huan – A Chinese artist whose performance art, sculpture, and installations explore themes of identity, spirituality, and memory.
12. Rashid Johnson – An American artist whose multimedia work explores themes of African American identity and history.
13. Yoshitomo Nara – A Japanese artist known for his portraits of wide-eyed children and animals that convey a range of emotions from innocence to defiance.
14. Shirin Neshat – An Iranian visual artist whose work in film, video, and photography examines the intersections of gender, politics, and religion.
15. Albert Oehlen – A German painter whose abstract works often challenge traditional notions of beauty and composition.
16. Paolo Pellegrin – An Italian photojournalist whose powerful images document human conflict and suffering around the world.
17. Alex Prager – A photographer and filmmaker known for her staged, cinematic images that evoke a sense of nostalgia and uncanny narratives.
18. Edward Ruscha – An American artist associated with the pop art movement, known for his paintings incorporating words and phrases.
19. Cindy Sherman – A photographer whose work explores the construction of identity and the nature of representation through staged self-portraits.
20. Sigmar Polke – A German artist known for his innovative use of materials and techniques, blending imagery from popular culture with complex historical references.

WANG KEPING

«LOLO»

2018

OLAF BREUNING

«Mother Nature»

2018

MIQUEL BARCELÓ

«Alycastre»

2018

CATALOGUE: