Parodie
Julie Béna
Le Magasin CNAC | Grenoble, FR
Institutional
04.10.25 - 05.04.26Solo exhibition at Le Magasin CNAC
Grenoble, FR
Parodie is Julie Béna’s largest solo exhibition to date, presented by Le Magasin CNAC in Grenoble, France.
Bringing together a significant body of work created between 2015 and the present day, the exhibition exists at the crossroads of the personal and the political. The identities and imagined characters that hide behind the masks suggest a form of introspection that the artist embraces with humour, derision, and exaggeration. Cabaret and fairy tales, which are regular inspirations for her imagery, use allegory and hyperbole to express opinions about social or political conditions. In a similar manner, the real and fantastical merge in Julie Béna’s world.
The project unfolds across Magasin’s historic building, its galleries, and its iconic space known as the “Rue” or “Street” – a vast interior hall under the a glass roof –, which here becomes all the more relevant in the context of the Béna’s work, which has been nourished by her experiences performing for the travelling theatre during her childhood and her profound relationship with performance art. Her creations reveal an intimate side while reflecting on inner personalities and cellular family dynamics. These works also provoke a collision with universal figures that are emblematic of the public sphere and the media universe, such as Shirley Temple. While the exhibition takes a retrospective look at the artist’s career as it considers almost ten years of Julie Béna’s creative practice, it is also an invitation for her to take ownership of the site and transform its spaces with new works designed specifically for the occasion. This will be the first time that such an extensive and eclectic selection of her art, in all of its diverse scales and different mediums, will be presented to the public.
The exhibition is accompanied by Béna’s first monograph, Fantasy, published by Montez Press. The publication is available for purchase at the gallery and online here.