14 Rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris, France
From 1960 till 1965, Gina studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
14 Rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris, France
From 1960 till 1965, Gina studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
(Detail of "Psyché" performance.)
Detail of "Psyché" performance.
(Photo of "Escalade non-anesthésiée" performance.)
Photo of "Escalade non-anesthésiée" performance.
(Detail of "Psyché" performance.)
Detail of "Psyché" performance.
Ethnicity:
Gina was born to an Italian father and an Austrian mother.
Gina Pane was born on May 24, 1939, in Biarritz, France. Her father was a piano maker. Most of her youth, Gina spent in Italy. She grew up, speaking both Italian and French.
In 1960, Gina enrolled at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She studied there until 1965 and André Chastel was one of her mentors.
At the time, when Gina was a student of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, she spent time, working at the Atelier d'Art sacré, an organization, that paired artists to execute projects for civic and religious buildings. It was a key training ground for female artists in particular.
During the period from 1962 till 1967, Pane created geometric, hard-edged abstractions, as well as many metal sculptures, by bending sheets of metal into simple shapes.
Between 1968 and 1971, Gina examined the relationship between the body and nature. Her notable works from this period include "Displaced Stones" (1968), "Protected Earth" (1968-1970) and "Enfoncement d'un rayon de soleil" (1969).
In the late 1960's, the artist was deeply troubled by the conservatism of the French government and the increasing violence and trauma of the Vietnam War. During May 1968, a volatile period of unrest unfurled itself in France, punctuated by demonstrations and major general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories across the country. At its height, it brought the economy of France almost to a halt. Instead of explicit political or social activism, Pane sought to convey her disillusionment and frustration through her art. From the years 1969-1979, she began turning to her own body as a way to express her concerns.
In 1973, Gina performed one of her major works, "Sentimental Action", before an audience, the first row of which was exclusively female. In "Sentimental Action", the protofeminist artist, dressed totally in white, takes a bunch of roses in her hand and hurts herself with their spines. The blood, dripping on the bouquet, turns the roses from white to red. At that point, the artist cuts herself with a razor blade.
The starting situation with Gina all dressed in white, in a white room, holding a bouquet of white roses, can represent a balanced situation, in which the artist has not felt pain yet. But then, something happened: what was beautiful harmed her, she got hurt by what she was holding with love. And the only thing she was able to do was hurting herself more with a razor blade. For her cutting is not a masochistic action: it is more showing people her pain. The artist herself said, that the wound speaks about freedom, earned with courage, freedom, made by radical choices, which seem to be fractures, but at the same time allow pain to abandon the body.
Between 1975 and 1990, Gina taught at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Le Mans, and during the period from 1978 to 1979, she ran an experimental performance workshop at the Centre Georges Pompidou.
In 1980, Pane abandoned performing after sustaining injuries and due to her conviction, that it had become "spectacularized". Until her death, her work would be mixed media, combining aspects of painting, sculpture and photography. In the last years of Pane's life, she suffered from cancer and died in 1990.
Gine Pane was a prominent artist, best known for her azioni, or "actions", in which she used her body as a material in order to comment on politics, gender, love and the role of art. Extreme self-inflicted injury featured in much of Pane's performance work, distinguishing her from most other female body artists of the 1970's.
Her most important works include "Ideal Situation: Earth-Artist-Sky" (1969), "Escalade non-anesthésiée" (1971), "The Conditioning" (1973), "Psyche" (1974), "Azione Sentimentale" (1974), and others.
Pane’s work is displayed in public collections of different museums, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Georges Pompidou and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, amongst others.
Through the violence of cutting her skin with razor blades or putting out fires with her bare hands and feet, Pane intended to incite a "real experience" in the viewer, who would be moved to empathize with her discomfort. She produced photographic and sculptural works, but the body always remained a central concern in all of Pane's work, whether literally or conceptually.
Pane was interested in the visual language of ritual and executed her performances with this in mind. She borrowed heavily from religious rites and other self-sacrificial practices to create her own contemporary versions of the relationship between the personal and the spiritual.
Quotations:
"My problem is to establish a language through this wound, that becomes a sign."
"The body, which is project/material/performer of an artistic project, finds its logical support in the image, which is the medium of photography."
"If the artist has a social conscience, he feels his responsibility in the society, in which he lives. I believe, he can become a catalyst of social and moral change, because he has complete liberty of expression. He can, of course, delve into autobiographical narcissism or shut himself up in his tower, but he does have the choice of being responsible on a social level."
"Contrary to the happening, which tended to 'make one participate', performance tends to the assimilation of the conjunctival tissue: the membrane, and by energy."
"My body experiments prove, that the 'body' is occupied and shaped by Society."
Pane was openly homosexual and feminist, and was open about the various ways, in which a patriarchal and hetero-normative culture and discourse circumscribed the bodies and minds of those outside its rigid structure.
Quotes from others about the person
"She was exceptionally good at listening to people. Most students in Le Mans come from a rural or working-class background. Gina Pane was genuinely attentive to her students' words or allusions, that, in her view, revealed desires, taking shape. She thought, that their imaginative power stemmed from their social environment... She succeeded in finding a common language even with those, who were most incapable of verbal formulation. This is a clear indication of the trust she placed in others, of her expectations." — Jean-Louis Raymond, a sculptor and ceramicist
Gina had a relationship with Anne Marchand, who worked closely with her on preparing and documenting her performances. She was also keen on surrounding herself with women, whether it was Francoise Masson, her photographer and collaborator, or the writer Anne Tronche, for example.
