Ria Pacquée
(Merksem,
1954 )
Performance artist Ria Pacquée made her international breakthrough in the 1980s with two series in which she took on the roles of two invented characters. For both Madame and It, she made herself in great detail familiar with how a certain sociocultural and economic class presents itself. ‘Madame’s’ daytrips (to Bokrijk and Lourdes but also to a dog show) raise fundamental questions about (the illusion of) individuality and identity in Western society. Pacquée uses her alter egos to infiltrate other people’s realities. From the second half of the 1990s, video and photography have played an important role in her oeuvre. Pacquée considers herself to be an observer of public life. The streets have become her working environment, where she collects images and sounds for her infinite archive. During her urban wanderings, she investigates the anonymous character of public life. She takes details from a wide range of everyday contexts and appropriates them. In 2018 Pacquée was given a retrospective with Slamm, Ramble, Perform at De Warande in Turnhout, followed in 2019 by the solo exhibition Ria Pacquée. They are looking at us, we are looking at them at the Antwerp Middelheim Museum.
