Marianne Maric

In Les femmes fontaines, Marianne Maric transforms a simple water jet into a powerful evocation of the female body. This seemingly trivial gesture becomes a symbol laden with eroticism and the sacred, recalling fluids associated with femininity — milk, tears, blood — oscillating between fertility, ecstasy, and purification. Created spontaneously in public spaces, these photographic performances question the role of the female body in the street. Through this subversion, the artist stages women who freely claim the public space as their own.

Far from any voyeuristic intent, she plays with ambiguity, flirting between humor and discomfort, while fitting into an artistic tradition where sensuality surfaces beneath the aesthetic, much like Ingres or Henner. Yet, she also engages with contemporary figures: Cindy Sherman, who deconstructs the codes of femininity, or Sarah Lucas, whose sharp irony disrupts representations of the female body.

Maric collaborates with both anonymous subjects and well-known personalities such as Olivia Merilahti (The Dø) and Lydia Lunch, exploring the balance between spontaneity and staging. This subtle interplay between control and surrender runs throughout her work, giving Les Femmes Fontaine a force that transcends mere provocation.

Critic Jerry Saltz’s reaction bears witness to this: when he wanted to republish an image from the series, he remarked that "technically, nothing is visible." For Maric, this confirms her intention. More than a simple explicit representation, the series asserts the narrative power of the female body, between mystery and revelation.