Venus Over Manhattan, a new exhibition space, opens on May 10 with the exhibition À rebours.
The exhibition takes its title from Joris-Karl Huysmans’ 1884 anti-novel “À rebours” known in English either as “against the grain” or “against nature.” This tale of fin-de-siècle decadence tells the story of the Duc Jean des Esseintes, an eccentric aristocrat who recoils from the manners and values of conservative Parisian society and flees to the countryside to immerse himself in art collecting and exotic fetishism.
À rebours at Venus over Manhattan explores the notion of “against the grain” through a selection of more than 50 works including African fetishes. The artists represented range from Odilon Redon – the favorite of the book’s protagonist – to Henri Fuseli, Gustave Moreau, Felicien Rops, Franz von Stuck, Lucas Samaras, William Copley, Jeff Koons, Carlo Mollino, Andy Warhol, Glenn Brown, Salvador Dali, Walter Dahn, David Hammons and Bernard Buffet, as well as Jeni Spota and Gavin Kenyon.
À rebours
Venus Over Manhattan
May 10 − June 30, 2012
980 Madison Avenue
3rd Floor
(between E 76th and 77th Streets)