Cabaray: Observatory Venus at the Lover’s Hour
MICOL HEBRON’S CABARAY: OBSERVATORY VENUS AT THE LOVER’S HOUR (2010) is part of a series in which she combines and recreates various notable works from art history, purposefully confusing pieces that have ‘’formal similarities” to challenge ideas of male authorship and the role of women in art. This work combines Alexandre Cabanel’s Birth of Venus and a photograph by Man Ray of a nude woman lying underneath his painting titled Observatory Time: The Lovers. Hebron’s photograph combines iconography from places she’s lived and worked: it was originally taken on the salt flats of the Great Salt Lake in Utah and the silhouette of the Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles (which can also be seen in Man Ray’s painting) was photoshopped in afterwards. The lips above Hebron belong to her friend, fellow artist, and former beauty queen.
