Marc Martin — Mauvaises vies ?

By placing his recent and older works in dialogue with marginalized memories and dissident art, photographer Marc Martin reaffirms his commitment to resisting erasure. Faced with the erosion of human rights and the resurgence of prudishness, the artist aims to reconcile the queer and leather scenes. He intends to bring to light the activist dimension of representing fetishists.

Putting the body back at the heart of the struggles. Bringing disgraced archives out of the closet, forcing them to confront reality, and witnessing them reclaim their territory. By bringing together, alongside Marc Martin's sensual photographs, paintings, drawings, and sculptures from the Pierre Passebon Collection and pieces from the LGBTQI+ Archives Center Paris Île-de-France, the exhibition reveals slices of life that defy convention. Through the body and sexuality, the artist, supported by personal texts, questions our era, so rife with obscenity. What can be displayed? What must be kept hidden? In light of current evolving attitudes, intimacy in art remains a sticking point.

In an era of simplistic rhetoric, the artist reveals the diversity of contemporary lives. The scenography, which explores the private sphere within the public sphere, encourages the public to deepen their understanding of the issues at stake in the struggle for emancipation and against all forms of stigmatization, including within the LGBTQI+ community.

Galerie Obsession, proudly embracing uninhibited eroticism, is delighted to celebrate these "Bad Lives." Its hushed setting perfectly suits these shady fantasies. Marc Martin's imagination mingles with those of Jean Cocteau, Pierre Molinier, and Yves Saint Laurent, all under the knowing gaze of Hélène Martini, empress of the night and the seedy bars of Pigalle. Her pink bedroom, designed by Erté and preserved by Pierre Passebon, takes pride of place at the heart of the exhibition—a nod to the particular allure of these lives that some call "bad."

— Florent Barbarossa, Galerie Obsession

I don't think being attracted to masculine attributes is unhealthy. I don't think having a masculine appearance makes you toxic. For me, the problem arises when "being masculine" makes you feel superior to others.

What is the male body in Marc Martin's work, if not the site of a struggle, simultaneously an object of fantasy and the bearer of an inherent tension? Systematically subjected to debate in the public sphere and on social media, the body here reclaims its role as desired material, both staged and obscene, like an outstretched arm reaching out to others beyond divisions. For an image to be considered subversive, it must still reveal the visceral nature of our lived experience, the complexity of our existence as desiring and authentic subjects. The experience of the body thus accounts for the tension between the hidden nature of desire and the sharing of fantasy or fetish, building a bridge between generations and communities through so many shared experiences. A bridge on which everyone will find themselves, as long as they consent. This is also the struggle of disgraced archives, whether they bear witness to repression, eroticization, or simply existence: to carve out a place for themselves in the collective memory and the future of our communities. Marc Martin's "Les Mauvaises Vies?" (Bad Lives?) ultimately embraces both the love of the body and the love of others.

— Romain Pinteaux, researcher in cultural studies and social sciences. He has worked in the Archives and Collections department of the Schwules Museum in Berlin, as well as within the chair of skills and vulnerabilities at the University of Patients-Sorbonne.