Feminist defacement action against world-famous painting L’Origine du monde – Joop

A defacement campaign has been carried out in the Center Pompidou Metz, the branch of the famous Parisian museum in the eastern French city. The feminist Luxembourg performance artist and photographer Deborah de Robertis painted Me Too on the world-famous painting L’Origine du Monde by Gustave Courbet from 1886. That work about the origins of the world shows an almost naked female body with an emphasis on the vagina. Four other works were also defaced. De Robertis protests against the systematic subordination and discrimination of women in the art world. The painting is behind security glass and has not suffered any damage as far as we know.

De Robertis is no stranger, her work hangs in the same museum. That work was also defaced. She has performed spectacular actions before. In 2014, she sat naked for the same work at the Musée d’Orsay and showed her vagina to the public. She was promptly taken away by the police. She also posed naked in the grotto of Lourdes, the Catholic shrine. In 2018, she was violently pulled off the stage by an angry organizer in Brussels during her TEDX presentation on sex in art.

The French Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, condemned the action on can color with the message of the day,” she wrote. “We will continue to protect works of art against the new iconoclasts.”