Overview
For their first exhibition in France, American artist duo Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley present a new video installation entitled Best Femmes Forever (2024). Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley have embarked on a long-term collaboration based on the scarcity of women's memoirs in history. Their work focuses on facetiously tampering with hegemonic narratives through historical rereadings that operate in temporal leaps. The duo's work focuses on three major periods: Antiquity, the French Revolution and the 19th century, and the First and Second World Wars.
Best Femmes Forever focuses on the French Revolution, setting the scene at the French court at the dawn of the upheavals of 1789. For the first time, the artists use historical figures rather than archetypal creations from their eras. Here, we presage the fateful fate that awaits the protagonists of this witty and saucy verbal joust, humorously set on the road to tragedy. Jeanne Bécu, known as Madame du Barry, born a commoner and later Countess and favorite of King Louis XV, attacks Queen Marie Antoinette, who retaliates before the eyes of her best friend, the princess of the House of Savoy: Madame de Lamballe.
The artists' immersive installation places spectators at the center of the games of influence, animosity and competition that bind these three Best Femmes Forever condemned to revolutionary vindictiveness. Two historical martyrs, Jesus Christ and Saint-Denis, make an appearance to guide them through the final moments of their lives.
