THE FEMALE GAZE
La Prairie’s latest artist collaboration, showcased at Art Basel 2019, presented the extraordinary work of three female photographers
La Prairie celebrated the work of three
female artists, Daniela Droz, Namsa Leuba and Senta Simond—all of them among the new guard of contemporary photography— in an exhibition that debuted at the La Prairie Pavilion in the Collectors Lounge during the 2019 edition of Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland.
Based on La Prairie’s latest breakthrough innovation— Skin Caviar Eye Lift, a new product that aims to rejuvenate the eyes, and a reincarnation of Skin Caviar Luxe Eye Cream—the exhibition, Eyes in Focus, marks the third year of La Prairie’s global partnership with the renowned art fair.
The three female artists are all graduates of the esteemed Lausanne University of Art and Design. As such, like La Prairie itself, they bring a unique Swiss aesthetic to the collaboration, which through three photographic installations presents unique reflections on the beauty, the power and the timelessness of the female gaze.
In her series, Droz transforms photographs into mirrors that reflect the viewer’s gaze back on itself. In this way, viewers are confronted with their own emotions rather than those emitted by the work. The viewer becomes part of the art, giving her gaze a timeless quality.
In Leuba’s colour-framed, abstract images, she explores the expression of time via the viewer’s impression of it. “In approaching this collaboration around the theme of Eyes
in Focus, I wanted to illustrate the nature of the emotions hidden in us that attempt to come through the veil that covers them,” says the artist.
Simond shot a series of intimate, close-up portraits of young, non-professional models—women who are authentic, natural and unaffected. “For this series,” she says, “I play with the gaze of my subjects by photographing them in different emotional states, reflecting different postures and attitudes. There is the ‘male gaze,’ which we tend to associate with objectification, and the ‘female gaze,’ which is usually linked with introspection. I hope that with these works, viewers are able to find some affinity with my gaze.”
Adds La Prairie’s chief marketing officer Greg Prodromides: “In making the deliberate choice to work with female artists, we also pay homage to the inimitable quality of the female gaze, interpreted by the perspective of women themselves. These artists break the codes of their chosen medium, just as La Prairie continues to break the codes of luxury skincare with unexpected creations.”
“THESE ARTISTS BREAK THE CODES OF THEIR CHOSEN MEDIUM, JUST AS LA PRAIRIE CONTINUES TO BREAK THE CODES OF LUXURY SKINCARE”