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There comes a time in the life of every feminist critic and writer when, according to the law of sod, she happens across a press release bearing the immortal first line: ‘Vincent Broustet invites us into the passionate world of young Khmer women.’ To review or not to review, she wonders. Don’t be ridiculous. Martha, fetch me my gun.
My pen! I mean my pen! How Freudian, please excuse. Anyway, how kind of Monsieur Broustet to invite us to his exhibition, let us proceed post haste to see what we can see. The passionate world of young Khmer women, otherwise known as Broustet’s solo show Queen For A Night, is only on view in Siem Reap until October 31; what if you want to see it twice?? We should hurry.
Queen For A Night focuses on Khmer women’s “transformation from everyday selves into unabashed beauties for Cambodian weddings and other significant occasions”. Unabashed! Saucy minxes that they are. That may sound like an excuse for us all to ogle women in various stages of undress and picturesque disarray, hair all of a tumble, ballgown slipping cheekily off one ‘unabashed’ shoulder, but undoubtedly the exhibition’s iconographic subtext contains some contrapuntal critique.
Assiduously, your feminist reviewer scans the aforementioned press release for thoughtful comment on the egregious sins of the male gaze, or a meaty gobbet of French philosophy at the very least. “The ritual of preparing for special events takes hours of enthusiastic groundwork, usually beginning with a visit to a favourite hair salon to have tresses elaborately styled and curled.” Tonsorially accurate, no doubt, no doubt, but few of us go to exhibitions to think about curling tongs, it must be said.
Ever investigative, your roving reporter buttonholed Robina Hanley, manager of McDermott Gallery in Siem Reap, to explain further. “You are unable to tell the difference in the girl who works in a factory from the girl who comes straight from the countryside. Neither girl is chic in her everyday life, but when she has a chance to dress for a ceremony or party, she is usually unrecognisable, sometimes full of confidence, sometimes a little embarrassed. Vincent sees this every day in Cambodia and when you examine his paintings you can see tenderness and respect in every brushstroke.”
That brings us to the paintings themselves. Influenced by “Rembrandt, Hugo Pratt and all the great artists in between,” Broustet positions his work firmly in the Impressionist tradition, his paintings redolent of Degas showing fleeting, flirting, fin de siecle ballet dancers. Except with much manlier shoulders, it must be said. Suffused with slabs of toothache-inducing satin, oddly proportioned women hover in a perspectiveless world, largely bereft of distinctive facial features or expression, but probably wishing they were somewhere else. So might you be, dear viewer; so might you be.
In a week when Miley Ray Cyrus has been much on everyone’s minds and even more in our Facebook feeds, whether we like it or not, it’s perspicacious to ask whether the kerfuffle over cultural appropriation and neo-orientalism that resulted from Mi-Cy’s twerkathon has a wider relevance. Broustet, who has lived and worked outside of his native France for much of his life, says that his “sketches and paintings do not engage in exoticism, but instead are transcriptions of moods and atmospheres, the pursuit of what is and remains common to every human, every landscape, every shadow”.
That Broustet voluntarily exonerates himself from the charge of exoticism before anyone has the chance to lay it at his door is interesting. You might even say telling; I would not say that, of course, but you might. Whether Broustet’s paintings themselves present a postcolonial perspective of ‘the East’ – an East of sensuality, latent sexuality and quantifiable stasis – is moot. As Broustet says, he “doesn’t believe in exoticism; what is normal to one person can seem exotic to another. Just because you haven’t experienced something doesn’t make it exotic.”
However, his works inarguably follow in the aesthetic tradition of painters who essentialised non-Western places and people in this tidy way. If you were one of the bajillion VMA viewers who was mild to moderately offended by Miley Ray Cyrus smacking a lady-bear’s ‘juicy butt’ before the 9pm watershed and making Willow Smith cry, you may also be offended by other postcolonial, patriarchal narratives. So, you know, buyer beware.
WHO: Vincent Broustet
WHAT: Queen For A Night art exhibition
WHEN: August 31 – October 31
WHERE: McDermott Gallery, Old Market, Siem Reap
WHY: Is this a trick question?
I find your writing very funny… it brightens my morning. The review covers the painting and and some historical background of exoticism of Orientals or should we say Asians.. Frankly, it is inescapable and I am indifferent to the practice. we are drawn to things that are different. just look at the many Cambodians who colored their hair orange like orangutans. trust me it is so common that I see it in many provinces, PP, SR, Battambang, Kampot, even in the most remote villages of Kampot. Farm workers who barely have clothes on their body but their hair is orangutan. And it is so just in Cambodia; turn on the TV and you see that the Koreans, the Japanese, the Singaporeans are all into orangutan.
Full disclosure, i am Khmer and I find this fad of hair color quite cute and hilarious.
hi there,i happen to be the ignoble vincent broustet himself!
reading by accident your article about queen for a night,i can t help \ remembering that adage that guides me trough this hard life:you MUST not please everyone.
so i accept that my humble work provoques such an attack from you,and will respect your virtuous desdain of -my painting-my way of life-what else?
those shocking extra large shoulders on the paintings happen to be those of my wife,i won t show her your comments,as i would nt want you-a rightous feminist obviously-to disappoint her.
it s lucky for me that so many people like and respect my work-but maybe those too are suspect of neo-colonial deviationism,and other mental staints?
cassandra..a name with a shadow!
have a nice day,love you too,v.
Hilarious review which reeks of oversensitive, angry butch feminism. I love it when ‘journalists’ get on their high horse and completely miss the point. Yet another under researched, misunderstood load if crap. Keep it up Cassie, you’re full of class.
Seriously – talk about over analysis. And never misses an opportunity to use five syllables when two will do.
Keeping it classy, that’s me!
More to the point is that whereas the womenfolk at Cambodian weddings do make enormous efforts to look their best, etc, the men by contrast go in their usual casual clothes, and most aim to drink as much as possible in the shortest time. None of this is about social interaction, just looks and feelings, as the music drowns out converation. Vincent is right, whatever any outsiders say, for the bride it is her special day for and her sisterhood, as indeed it is for most brides everywhere.