Vénus Parade

TWENTYTWENTY

Venus Parade is a sculptural, participatory, and ambulatory work designed for public spaces. Celebrating six Palaeolithic Venuses carried on palanquins and preceded by six banners bearing their likenesses, this parade is a tribute to femininity. Recited through a megaphone and accompanied by a percussion ensemble, a poem written by Anne James Chaton accompanies this parade in the style of a joyful protest demonstration.

All the Palaeolithic Venuses that have come down to us are small sculptures – some measuring just a few centimetres – made from various materials: stone, ivory or terracotta. Their geographical origin ranges from the Pyrenees to Lake Baikal, and their often steatopygous nature is still subject to numerous interpretations. They are all depicted standing upright and seem to have been designed to be carried around, some even as pendants.

The diversity and richness of their forms make them small objects imbued with humanity, whose emotional charge seems to have travelled through the millennia to reach us, intact, in order to celebrate femininity.

We enjoyed reappropriating these marvellous works by giving them human scale.

We also enjoyed depicting them seated, as if, at the end of such a long journey through the ages, the time had come for a well-deserved rest.

Designed and created using our usual materials, the sculptures have a precious, glossy appearance, similar to the figures in our modern Parade (2013). The palanquins are also covered with the same pearlescent, metallic automotive lacquer.

The banners are made of velvet fabric and embroidery in the style of Breton pardons.

Creation 2022

Design, production, sculptures Yvan Clédat & Coco Petitpierre

Booklet Anne-James Chaton

Vocals / acting Angèle Prunenec

Percussion Stéphane Vecchione

Administration, distribution Clémence Huckel and Iris Cottu – Les Indépendances

Production lebeau & associés

Co-production

Bonlieu – Scène Nationale d’Annecy

Communauté d’Agglomération Mont Saint-Michel – Normandie

Le Printemps des Comédiens – Montpellier