The Férocité à domicile exhibition highlights the specific relationship that individuals maintain with their mother or maternal figure. Maternity is not the subject here — that is, the feelings of a mother with respect to her child — but rather a child’s (including adults) feelings about their mother. Besides being the first connection to the life that she has brought about, mothers most often assume the role of guardian of the family home.

However, this connection is far more complex than it appears, since it bears the hallmarks of love, care and benevolence, but also sometimes absence and negligence. Beyond a sense of belonging, as it turns out, love is powerless to prevent both subconscious and contradictory behaviour and harmful attitudes. As such, it is a decisive factor in identity forming, directly influencing an individual’s sense of self-esteem as well as emotional independence and autonomy. "Férocité à domicile" presents existing artworks and others that have been specially created for the exhibition, which explore artists’ relationships with their mothers and the way in which these bonds shape their worldviews. Together, they offer an introspective spectrum of the various aspects of this complex and fundamental bond, combining concrete representations and more abstract formulations.

With works by Chantal Akerman, Tolia Astakhishvili (with Simon Lässig and Maka Sanadze), Cudelice Brazelton, Rosa Joly, Harilay Rabenjamina, Rosemarie Trockel, Sebastian Wiegand

Oriane Durand
An independent exhibition curator, based between France and Germany. Oriane Durand’s curatorial
approach has been influenced by her work for over a decade at the Kunstvereinsin Germany, the equivalent of France’s art centres. This kind of institution, whose origins date back to the creation of the Nuremberg Kunstverein in 1792, were the first public exhibition spaces to present contemporary artists. Over time and with the advent of museums and Kunsthalles, Kunstvereins were transformed into research centres and platforms for experimentation, usually presenting emerging artists within the framework of individual or collective exhibitions. In this context, Oriane Durand focused on practices that broach contemporary social issues, such as the impact of technological progress on the environment and human behaviour or the Western system of domination and authority over minorities, and which explore the expressive and poetic potential of materials as a form of non-verbal communication. She notably organised the first institutional solo exhibitions in Germany by artists such as Raphaela Vogel (2015, Bonner Kunstverein 2015), Sol Calero (2017, Dormtunder Kunstverin), Mimosa Echard (2019, Dortmunder Kunstverein), Sara Sadik (2022, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster) and Tolia Astakhishvili (2023, Bielefelder Kunstverein). In 2020, she founded the independent exhibition space Le Berceau in Marseille. She is a regular writer for Frieze magazine and exhibition catalogues. Since October 2023 she has been the manager of the Visual Arts Bureau of the Institut Français in Germany.