Marriage in Venice

Venice with its palazzi and bridges has always been a perfect scene for numerous stagings. So it was for the symbolic marriage of the city with the sea that manifested its power over the upper Adria region.

On this occasion, a large number of boats and ships went to the Lido, the doge, the head of state, threw a blessed, golden ring into the sea in order to symbolize Venice´s marriage with the sea speaking the sentence: „Desponsamus te, mare, in signum veri perpetuique dominii - We wed thee, sea, in the sign of the true and everlasting Lord."

Iris Brosch took this tradition as a source of her performance titled Desponsamus te, mare, in which she critcally questions patriarchal structures and existing balances of power. As she does in her fashion photographs that are published in numerous international magazines such as Vogue, Marie Claire or Harper´s Bazaar, Brosch in her Venetian performance wants to present woman and her feminity in an expressive, powerful and heroic way.

In the centre of Brosch´s photographic work stands the examination of the Old Masters and woman´s changeableness. In her photographs, Brosch cites both Italian Renaissance painters and modern paintings. Her photographic style once was described as: "Miuccia Prada meets Leonardo da Vinci".

That this is a quite apposite comparison, one can see watching the performance documentation here!