Art+ Shanghai Gallery’s spring opening of ‘Fake i Real Me’ exhibition presents a selection of the photographic series by a prominent French artist and photographer Corinne Mariaud.

The works on view not only express the character of the photographed models but also communicate the artist’s own vision. “FAKE i REAL ME” exhibition embodies the loss of the "i" in our modern society , the “i” that fights conformity with resistance, and the “i” that is entangled and lost in the knot of illusion and reality, absurdity and common sense, nature and superficiality.

“FAKE i REAL ME” portrait series, created by Corinne in Singapore and Seoul, is an undoubtable highlight of the exhibition. Young women, captured in the photographs symbolize a generation consumed by the desire to possess a "perfect" body. Corinne Mariaud unmasks the perpetual tendency of young adults towards retouching, correcting and reconstructing their appearances that turns their bodies into a sculptural object or an artwork,  an unresponsive image that the artist transfers and prints in her photographs.

The artist illustrates how through the use of make-up and plastic surgery her protagonists allegedly trying to enhance their appearance, and yet deceitfully fall into a trap of subjecting their bodies to a never-ending quest for perfection.

 “Disorder” series feature individuals appear alone in the photographs. Imposed in an a common place setting  in which they do not behave appropriately, they "escape the framework" of normality. Moreover, in many photographs, the individuals seem dead. The body remains inanimate in deserted streets, isolated, like a shell that its inhabitant has gotten rid of. The work of the artist thus expresses a form of solitude, where the norm is not reassuring but constrains the individual to a form of violence towards oneself.

Similarly, in  “Trophées” , Corinne raises the topic of violence over one’s self.  By presenting the cut off heads, the artist  portrays the ideal woman as a frozen figure, trapped in her appearance and the victim of the stereotypes attached to femininity.

 “Fake i Real Me” presents the artist’s exploration of the human body from every angle: on the one hand, it is the female or male body with its plastic features, and their role a in society, an inanimate reflection of an ideal and its distorted representation, and on the other, it is a totem that rises against imposed rules.