Klodin Erb: Le Grand Drame

Klodin Erb presents her first solo exhibition in France, exploring emotions, fantasies and questions surrounding human existence. Drawing on art history, theatre, fashion and popular culture, her practice examines desire, anxiety and the ways in which people inhabit the world. At the Centre culturel suisse, Le Grand Drame transforms the exhibition space into a theatrical setting where tragic and burlesque elements coexist, while the sensitive, the absurd and the surreal converge.

Under the glass roof, venusinfurs brings together a series of monumental paintings framed with textile borders. Inspired by representations of the Birth of Venus and Roman Baroque ceilings, the works feature floating, intertwined and suspended bodies. Erb reinterprets this long pictorial tradition through a feminist perspective, shifting viewpoints and disrupting scale so that the figures appear caught in continuous movement.

A new video work extends the universe of venusinfurs. Part-human, part-animal figures move through a series of encounters, fragmented memories and spectral social gatherings. Through these characters, Erb reflects on memory, its transformations with age and the fictions people construct to give shape to their lives. In Le Grand Drame, her highly gestural and colourful painting combines surreal moments with the roles of setting, stage and character.