Annette Messager


Annette Messager is a French visual artist. In 2005 she won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale for her artwork at the French Pavilion. In 2016, she won the prestigious Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award. She lives and works in Malakoff, France.

Biography

Annette Messager was born on 30 November 1943 in Berck, France. Between 1962 and 1966, Messager attended the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, France.
She is the partner of artist Christian Boltanski.

Career

Messager is known mainly for her installation work which often incorporates photographs, prints and drawings, and various materials. Her work rejects traditional methods in visual arts such as painting in favour of "bricolage" works that combine media and subvert value systems, often making experimental use of methods traditionally designated to a "so-called feminine sensibility."
She has exhibited and published her work extensively.
In 2005, she represented France at the Venice Biennale, where she won the Golden Lion for her Pinocchio-inspired installation that transformed the French pavilion into a casino. One of her most famous pieces is her exhibition The Messengers, which showcases an installation of rooms that include a series of photographs and toy-like, hand knit animals in costumes. For example, some of the animals' heads were replaced by heads of other stuffed animals to reflect the ways in which humans disguise themselves or transform their identities with costume.

Select solo exhibitions

In 2006, a book under the title Word for Word: Texts, Writings and Interviews was published. It explores the writing in Annette Messager's artworks, and gathers numerous related texts published in magazines or catalogues, as well as unpublished notes on Messager's work and her personal reflections on art and life. All her interviews from 1974 to the present are also included.

Select editions