Jacqueline Doyen

b. 1978, France/Germany

Jacqueline Doyen is a French artist currently based in Berlin. Her work focuses on the connection between the body and image-making. Her industrially manufactured objects uncannily recall medical appliances, theatrical props, or sport apparatuses. They exist as sculptural installations as well as usable appliances for staged performances. In both their extreme uncomfortableness and beauty, they extend the imagination, bringing it to the relationship we have with our bodies in a wider socio-political framework. These works investigate the potential to physically re-enact, or mentally explore the sculptural dimension of the human body. Each of her works necessitates a specific pose to be performed and sustained. The poses each indicate particular relationships with the body that are linked to history, culture, the environment, and sometimes history. For EVA 2014 Doyen presented her work Model 3107. It references the famous posture of the British model Christine Keeler in Lewis Morley’s 1963 photograph, which although not visible in the exhibition, is made apparent through the work’s materiality, the performance on opening night, and the staged photograph taken of the performance. In Morley’s original photo Keeler was portrayed sitting on a copy of Arne Jacobsen’s Serie 7, Model 3107, the chair inspired the title of this work by Doyen. Supported by the French Embassy in Ireland.

Jacqueline Doyen graduated from the Villa Arson in Nice (FR) and the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig (DE). Selected exhibitions include, “Show Time” (group show) at GI Holtegaard Kunsthall (DK), “Eclipse” (solo) at Kunstverein Wolfsburg (DE) and at Kunsthalle Lingen (DE), “So near the garden but still miles away” (group show) at Galleria 1/9, Rome (IT) and “Jacqueline Doyen and Claudia Kapp” (two artist exhibition) at the Kunstverein Hannover (DE).

(Text: EVA 2014, AGITATIONISM, catalogue)