She can be referred to as an UNID: Unidentified Flying Artist. As a gallery owner, expert, and lecturer on contemporary art, Sylvana Lorenz defines herself as an artist of communication. Since 1994, by participating in several television programs such as Strip-tease and Zone Interdite, she has communicated about Pierre Cardin, for whom she is the head of artistic communication. “I’m passionate about the media. I’ve chosen them as a material and I invest in them. I appear on the radio, TV, in newspapers… You have to manipulate the media, feed them so you can eat bit by bit,” claims Sylvana Lorenz. She manipulates them by pushing scenarios to the extreme: “I play the role of an actress” to justify her extremism with a Mexican collector or being perceived as a freeloader of the jet-set.
Wednesday afternoon, after a series of interviews since her arrival in Nice on Monday, she settles in the Depardieu Gallery and questions the two young journalists present to know their opinion on her photographed nudity. Shocked or not shocked to see the body of a woman aged 55 years minus one day without artifice except for Pierre Cardin accessories? With this question, the message becomes clearer. She reassures that she is understood and confesses that one of the attitudes that has touched her the most in recent years is not being understood. The primary objective, and she is employed for this, is to generate publicity for herself and Pierre Cardin. But beyond that, it is also a call for authenticity, an ode to natural beauty, telling young girls and older women: accept the passage of years, do not try to resemble the gaunt models featured in fashion magazines. As usual, there is a game with the media, a game of provocation. Sylvana Lorenz compares herself to Catherine Millet who had to write “The Sexual Life of Catherine M,” in which she crudely narrated her sexual experiences, to get the journalists’ attention. “I show my ass to go along with the media and thus reclaim them,” Sylvana justifies.
The idea for the nude self-portraits accompanied by verses (“Rhymes for Prince Pierre”) was born in Nice in June 2007. An expert from Boisgirard Auction House asked her if she had any photographed works. She had just gotten a camera with a self-timer. The connection was made. She would take self-portraits with accessories from the designer Pierre Cardin. These can be seen at the Depardieu Gallery, 64 Boulevard Risso, to discover or learn more about Sylvana Lorenz, an UNID, but a thoughtful one indeed.
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