Contemporary Art Criticism, Interviews, Essays and Visual Politics
Deborah De Robertis is a Luxembourg-born performance, video and conceptual artist whose work examines the female body, the politics of looking and the authority exercised by museums over artistic representation.
She became internationally known through Miroir de l’origine, performed in 2014 at the Musée d’Orsay in front of Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du monde. By physically occupying the space beneath the painting, De Robertis transformed the represented female body into an active subject capable of returning the spectator’s gaze.
Her performances frequently reinterpret canonical artworks by introducing the living body into institutional spaces. This confrontation questions the difference between nudity accepted as an art-historical image and nudity presented by a woman who controls her own visibility, position and meaning.
De Robertis works across performance, photography, video and film, addressing feminism, censorship, institutional power and the relationship between artists, models and cultural authorities. Museums are not neutral settings within her practice but contested environments in which decisions about legitimacy, exposure and exclusion become visible.
Explore articles, performances and critical perspectives related to Deborah De Robertis and her contribution to feminist art, body art, institutional critique and contemporary performance.
Lynda Benglis in her advertisement (November 1974) From Michelangelo’s Fig Leaf to Instagram: How We Automated the Censorship of the Body We did not abolish the fig
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Deborah De Robertis — The Origin of the World A Provocative Artist at the Center of Controversy Deborah de Robertis has never been one to shy away from controversy.
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