MAO -

“Violence was all. The flower bloomed and faded. The sun rose and sank. The lover loved and went. And what the poets said in rhyme, the young translated into practice. Girls were roses, and their seasons were short as the flowers. Plucked they must be before nightfall; for the day was brief and the day was all.”

In the first edition of his Systema naturae (1735), botanist Carl Linnaeus proposed an eleven-page classification system, divided into three kingdoms: animal, mineral and plant. For the purposes of the last, his observations led him to put together a herbarium, which ultimately contained a stunning nineteen thousand leaves.

With the publication of Fundamenta botanica (1736), Linnaeus established a hyper-sexualised metonymy between female genitalia and flowers, based on his observations of plants’ reproductive organs in contrast to human genitalia – foreshadowing a monster-like “flower-woman” with male and female genital characteristics, which has come to inhabit twentieth-century romantic literature.

The exhibition segment Woman Flower investigates this hyper-sexualised term that is hidden behind elegant allegories. Initialising a new aesthetic, the “flower-woman” established herself as a modern artistic figure at the turn of the twentieth century, particularly with art nouveau. She embodied eternal femininity, present both in Alfons Mucha’s Seasons and in the serpentine dances of Loïe Fuller. For a long time, this prolific repertoire of “flower-women” posed a barrier to female emancipation. The same goes for the comparison of women to “hothouse flowers” – permanently beautiful, sensual and erotic. This sexualised analogy stems from Victorian interpretations and helps construct an ideal of the evanescent, vulnerable and fragile woman, no matter how trivial and inexact the notion. This idea of women is embodied in Conventry Patmore’s poem The Angel in the House (1854), where Patmore defines the ideal woman as “shy,” “chaste” and “innocent,” her role being to love and unconditionally, subserviently support her husband.

BIO28 Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower? is organized by the Museum of Architecture and Design in collaboration with the Center for Creativity. The biennial marks 60 years since the first exhibition and 10 years of the production platform. The curator of the 28th Biennial of Design is Alexandra Midal.

17.00 Guided Tour of BIO28 Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower? (Guided by Hana Čeferin)

Location

Opening hours

Contact