FÉMININ–MASCULIN: LE SEXE DE L'ART — Petit journal de l'exposition, Centre Pompidou, 1995

Official Petit journal produced for the Centre Georges Pompidou's major exhibition Féminin–Masculin: Le sexe de l’art, Paris, 26 October 1995–12 February 1996. Curated by Marie-Laure Bernadac and Bernard Marcadé. Staple-bound illustrated exhibition guide, 20 pages, 21 × 29.5 cm; text in French. This copy retains an original Guardian Arts clipping dated Tuesday 7 November 1995.

Bringing together roughly 500 works by around 100 artists, the exhibition considered how twentieth-century art had repeatedly destabilised distinctions between masculine and feminine, sexuality and identity, body and representation. Its historical range was deliberately broad. Duchamp, Picabia, Bellmer, Cahun and Man Ray sit beside Bourgeois, Warhol, Nauman, Sherman, Gober, Holzer, Kelley, Hatoum, Lucas and other artists then defining the contemporary field. Rather than construct a single history of gender, the exhibition brought incompatible positions into proximity.

The publication is the smaller, more immediate form of that exhibition: inexpensive, handled and intended to move through the museum with its audience. Robert Gober’s Untitled, 1991, appears on the cover; the interior compresses a large institutional exhibition into reproductions, short texts and practical information.

This copy retains an original review clipped from The Guardian, Tuesday 7 November 1995, shortly after the exhibition opened. Preserved with the guide for three decades, the newspaper shifts the object from simple exhibition handout towards a small period file: institutional presentation and contemporary reception retained together. The clipping has not been separated or discarded. Its survival with the publication forms part of this copy’s history.

Artists represented in the exhibition include: Marina Abramović/Ulay, Vito Acconci, Janine Antoni, Jean Arp, Richard Baqué, Hans Bellmer, Lynda Benglis, Karl Blossfeldt, Jacques-André Boiffard, Louise Bourgeois, Constantin Brancusi, Claude Cahun, Sophie Calle, Helen Chadwick, Larry Clark, Lygia Clark, Gustave Courbet, Salvador Dalí, Willem de Kooning, Otto Dix, Marcel Duchamp, Marlene Dumas, Max Ernst, VALIE EXPORT, Robert Gober, Nan Goldin, George Grosz, Mona Hatoum, Eva Hesse, Jenny Holzer, Rebecca Horn, Jasper Johns, Frida Kahlo, Mike Kelley, Yves Klein, Maria Lassnig, Sarah Lucas, Paul McCarthy, René Magritte, Man Ray, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ana Mendieta, Annette Messager, Joan Miró, Pierre Molinier, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Alice Neel, Georgia O’Keeffe, Claes Oldenburg, Meret Oppenheim, Giuseppe Penone, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Charles Ray, Niki de Saint Phalle, Carolee Schneemann, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, Nancy Spero, Jana Sterbak, Rosemarie Trockel, Andy Warhol, Hannah Wilke, Sue Williams and others.

The scale of the list is part of the object’s usefulness now: canonical figures remain beside artists whose presence in this exhibition is much less frequently encountered, preserving something of the exhibition’s original historical argument rather than reducing it to its most familiar names.

Condition: Good. Light handling, surface wear and minor creasing consistent with an exhibition publication of this format. The accompanying newspaper clipping is age-toned, with irregular edges, small tears and losses typical of period newsprint. Preserved as found.

Securely packed; tracked UK and international shipping available.