John Deneuve plays with the dress codes and modes of the star system of showbiz society to show and reveal in an ambiguous manner, somewhere between parody and adulation, its intrinsic powers of seduction.

The thematic and operational vectors which she uses, often off stage and with amusement, yet not without some feeling of discomfort, are, and on a recurring basis, childhood and sex.

Her art is an art of collision, a subliminal art that goes beyond conventional genres and barriers. Deneuve questions us and questions herself upon the limits between art and non-art, between good taste and bad taste, between codified references and assumed transgressions. Her art is subliminal : always on the fine line and border between different genres and aesthetic categories, between that which is usually qualified as aesthetically correct and which now no longer is, she is always on the point of swinging over. 

As with the pseudonym that she has adopted, John Deneuve erases her tracks and willingly mixes up her references. Moreover, when we question her on her artistic references, one after the other she names Louise Kusama, Men Motti, Yayoi Bastard, Bruce Bourgeois and Paul Durham, and so on.

Her work is polymorphous : installations, sound work, videos and drawings exist side by side and coexist with musical performances and creations. From one to the other, in all these different fields of creative expression, appears the assumed confrontation of the adult world with that of childhood. The infantilization of the former and the sexualization of the latter are just but a few examples of the transgressive porosity which characterizes her work.

But the Unheimlichkeit,  Inquiétante Etrangeté « The uncanny » that emanates from her works is never aggressive: of a playful if not absurd nature, initially she appears to give the illusion of being easily understood and categorized. Nevertheless, the apparent simplicity, the direct and evocative characteristics of the concepts used do not overshadow the effectiveness of the propositions.

A good example of her approach can easily be apprehended in "Programme de pre-intégration par le coloriage" (Programme of pre-integration through colouring) a protocol in where she gives logos of the ANPE (French job centre), the CPAM (French health service) and the CAF (French social support service) etc. to children to colour so that they can become familiar with the administrative machinery of these bureaucracies which they will later be confronted with, in adulthood.

It is probably the opposite which occurs in "Éducation sexuelle" (Sexual education), a series of cartoons commissioned by Arte (a private French television channel) which adopt the tone and discursive form of lessons that target the young and innocent, cartoons that deal with topics such as the anilingus, the G spot, the Golden Shower and which are obviously targeted at a more adult audience. On line on the Arte internet site, the lessons can only be viewed between 11pm and 8am.

By interfering the symbolic and discursive worlds to which she refers, John Deneuve thus develops relationships between elements that initially seem completely foreign to one another (sometimes even irreconcilably) in order to question the snares of orthodox thinking.

This dimension of lato sensu (a wider) analysis of society is particularly present in Aventures cérébrales (Cerebral adventures), a cartoon that works as a form of job tests where the viewer is invited to prove his professional leadership skills, among others, by replying to remarks that are, at the very least, disconcerting and obviously totally irrelevant to the investigation in process.

Quite logically John Deneuve also, and repeatedly, uses and applies the aesthetics of travesty, cross-dressing ( in meanings and intentions) in order to reveal the ambivalence of her propositions and interventions.

In Dreams are my reality (reference to the emblematic soundtrack of 1980's French movie La Boum) , the installation proposed for this edition of  ART-O-RAMA's Show Room, Deneuve plays in some way with the acceptance that is at the same time both a literal and subverted way of dealing with the very concept of presentation / ex-position / exhibition and the title of the initiative : her Show Room  initially seems to be a form of  padded space capsule, somewhere between the magical and the erotic, a disoriented space, at once enticing and repulsive, oscillating between an ostentation of imagery (and volume), both partial and practically grotesque images of the body and attempts to sacrilize it at the same time.

Text by Emmanuel Lambion

Translation by Caroline Newman