PANEROTIC
by BENNU GEREDE
Known for her social projects around the themes of women, body, gender and sexuality, Bennu Gerede’s solo exhibition Panerotic brings together works from different photography series of the artist at Be Contemporary Art Gallery between 27 March – 27 April 2021.
In the exhibition curated by Pırıl Gündüz, Bennu Gerede invites the audience to rethink the female body and question the perception charged with sexual connotation of its forms. While emphasizing that forms of nude female body are forms that actually exist in nature, the exhibition sets an unbiased relationship between female body and nature.
Bennu Gerede's photographs in the Panerotic exhibition establishe an analogy between the female body and various forms of flowers, fruits and vegetables in nature. In this sense, the photographs also refer to the flower photographs of the American artist Robert Mapplethorpe. Bennu Gerede highlights different parts of the female body and objects in nature, deliberately leaving the background blank to focus on her questioning on form. While reminding functional, sensory and tactile purposes of existence of the forms, cavities and protrusions of female body; the artist attempts to stand out in midst of the male-dominated aesthetic view.
Thus, Panerotic invites the viewer to look at the female body who celebrates herself in relation to nature from a different perspective, free from current perceptual and intellectual stereotypes. The name of the exhibition "Panerotic" takes its origin from this point; with "pan" or "total" understanding of sexuality, it invites the audience to reflect on the spectrum of pleasure.