Maman, histoire de sa robe verte (Mama, story of her green dress)

French artist Annette Messager’s Maman, Histoire de sa robe verte (Mama, the story of her green dress) is composed of framed photographs and watercolors set between layers of a green satin and black mesh garment that resembles a skirt or a cape. The photographs depict body parts, while the watercolors appear to illustrate moments in a story, with captions referring to various episodes in a mother’s life. Part of her Histoire des robes (The Story of Dresses) series of the mid-1990s, Messager’s work encourages viewers to read its components as elements of a narrative, although a cohesive one cannot be achieved. Rather, the history is presented as something that is splintered and incomplete. In such works, Messager connects ideas about personal narrative to larger discourses on gender, the body and memory.

Messager uses clothing, which is intimately related to the body, to provide a stand-in for it. Yet, while the skirt suggests the presence of the feminine body, it also points to its absence, in this case to the specific body of her mother, to whom the title refers. Through the multiplicity of images interwoven into this skirt, Messager suggests the fragmented nature of memory, as well as identity. In her work, Messager raises questions about how gender is constructed and points to ways that sexual identity is something that is culturally shaped rather than simply natural.

This accumulation of objects is presented in a glass-topped box, a vitrine-like display typical of those found in museums. It also suggests a reliquary, with the individual images suggesting devotional offerings. Messager thus frames her work in a way that invests these fragments of the human form with greater meaning, although their ultimate significance remains mysterious.