I HIT YOU WITH A FLOWER-SUGAR-COATED ART WITH A PUNCH

I HIT YOU WITH A FLOWER-SUGAR-COATED ART WITH A PUNCH curated by Nanda Janssen
22nd May, 2025 – 27th July, 2025
MABA
16 rue Charles VII
94130 Nogent-sur-Marne

At first glance, the latest exhibition at MABA, I Hit You With a Flower – Sugar-Coated Art With a Punch, curated by Nanda Janssen, appears charmingly light-hearted. Bringing together French and Dutch artists, the show embraces a palette of pinks, pastels, glitter, and gold — the visual language of sweetness and innocence.

But beneath the glossy surface lies something sharper. The works explore complex issues — feminism, gender, (homo)sexuality, intimacy, eroticism, racism, and body acceptance — with subtlety and humour. Their approach is not confrontational, but quietly insistent. Here, protest arrives dressed in sparkle.

The artists use beauty as bait. Exuberant, decorative images draw viewers in, then gently nudge them towards deeper social commentary. Serious themes are handled with a delicacy that makes them all the more powerful. Direct activism is replaced by suggestion, and softness becomes strategy.

What has often been dismissed as “girly” — pastel tones, floral motifs, decorative excess — is reclaimed in this exhibition as both valid and subversive. The aesthetic is not exclusive to women, but speaks to men and the queer community as well. Its apparent frivolity is, in fact, a deliberate misdirection.

I Hit You With a Flower invites us to look again — not just at the art, but at the assumptions we bring to it. It’s a celebration of difference, a critique of conformity, and above all, a reminder that beauty and seriousness need not be opposites.

David Hockney 25

Artists presented

Afra Eisma, 1993, lives in Amsterdam, NL
Ninon Enea, 1999, lives in Montreuil, FR
Jurjen Galema, 1992, lives in Groningen, NL
Vera Gullikers, 1991, lives in Maastricht, NL
Alan Hernández, 1992, lives in Mexico, MX
Kinke Kooi, 1961, lives in Arnhem, NL
Ash Love, 1996, lives in Marseille, FR
Béatrice Lussol, 1970, lives in Malakoff, FR
Alex Naber, 1984, lives in Almere & ChelseaBoy, 1993, lives in Amsterdam, NL
Richard Otparlic, 1993, lives in Issy-les-Moulineaux, FR
Lucas Tortolano, 1995, lives in Paris, FR

I HIT YOU WITH A FLOWER-SUGAR-COATED ART WITH A PUNCH 22nd May, 2025 – 27th July, 2025 MABA

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