Art and sexuality should not be separated from one another, according to Madeleine Berkhemer. “Art that has no sexual connotation has no reason to exist,” she reckons. Born in the Netherlands in 1973, Madeleine studied fashion design in Rotterdam. Since then, she has worked successfully at the boundaries of creative tailoring, performance art and sexual iconography. Berkhemer is best known for her abstract installations made from stockings, stretched like spiders' webs over objects and spaces. Cars appear often in her works: take this dramatic Maserati Ghibli, for example, which in 2004 wowed a Parisian gallery audience – more so when the scarcely dressed artist herself adorned the car’s bonnet. Even Giorgetto Giugiaro, the man who designed the Ghibli in the Sixties, has declared his approval and joy at the tribute. And praise doesn’t come much higher than that. 

Photos: David Mouchard / Video: Bruno Dunckel