VIRGINIE PHILIPPE HIQUILY

The female counterpart to Onan (1991), Virginie (for virginity) is more discreet than her male equivalent. Here, the padlock represents a chastity belt, which replaces her genitals. It is impossible to take the key that Virginie presents to the viewer, as it is firmly trapped in her hand.

Philippe Hiquily, born March 27, 1925 in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, died March 27, 2013 in Villejuif, was a French sculptor and designer. At 18 years old, Philippe Hiquily enlisted in the army to break with his family and took part in the campaigns in France and Indochina (1945). He has been a metal sculptor since the early 1950s (iron, sheet metal, brass, aluminum).

At the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1948 to 1953, he frequented the workshops of sculptors Jean Tinguely and Germaine Richier, for whom he made sculpture pedestals. He exhibited for the first time in 1955 at the Palmes gallery in Paris, then at the Contemporaries gallery in New York in 1959, where he met the great names of American art (Léo Castelli, Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Jasper Johns, Isamu Noguchi…). Success was not long in coming: the prestigious New York museums (MOMA and Guggenheim) bought several of his works. However, he will experience a crossing of the desert from 1965 to 1980, without however stopping to create.

His studio was for a long time located in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, rue Raymond Losserand, at 32, now converted into an apartment. A copy of La Marathonienne is on display in the courtyard to remind us that this is where Hiquily's genius flourished. He exhibited regularly at the Salon de Mai and Jeune sculpture in Paris. From 1960, he created furniture, furniture with a dreamlike and surreal spirit. The creation of bronzes began around 1980.

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