Camila Palomo is a researcher in the making and part-time writer with a passion for art and culture. A specialist in multilingual dynamics, Camila Palomo campaigns for the recognition of women in the arts and for a culture that is more accessible to all, and also defends the place of folklore and crafts as art forms in their own right. An avid cinema-goer, she also loves fantasy worlds and Celtic music.
Note of intent
Art, in all its forms, is much more than a simple consumer object. It is a means of expressing identity, a collective memory. Yet, in a world where the market too often sets the rules, artists find it hard to have their work recognized for its true worth. In my work, I've seen up close the obstacles they face today on sales platforms: overpriced subscriptions, absurd commissions, an experience devoid of any human contact and a commercial logic that seems far removed from the realities of creation.
Why Atfu = hope ?
A free, simple app designed by artists for artists. A space where you can sell, exchange and connect without intermediaries or hidden fees. This project has a soul, a spark of humanity and hope that speaks to me, and it's with great enthusiasm that I embark on this editorial adventure.
Each week, I'll be exploring a question, a debate, an issue that's driving the art world today: what are the economic alternatives for artists struggling to sell their work? Does anonymity in art change the way we look at a work? How do we determine the price of a creation, and how does this vary from one era and culture to another? How does the “discovery” of artists work, and why is it often so complicated? These are subjects that concern us all, artists, art lovers and the simply curious.
Through this blog, my aim is to open up discussions, propose food for thought and give a voice to those who, all too often, remain invisible in an art market that's almost impossible to navigate.
Above all, I defend the idea that art should not be a matter of privilege, but a collective adventure, alive and accessible to all.
Camila P.
04.04.25
Point de vue : Laia Abril - On mass hysteria
a history of misogyny
A friend and I were talking recently about anger and how we express it in our lives. As women, many of us struggle to express anger in a healthy, open way.
“When I'm upset, I cry.”
“Personally, I almost never get angry, but sometimes my stomach hurts for days if I don't talk about it.”
In fact, anger is not a new emotion for us. But throughout history, women have been punished for their anger, and conditioned to suppress it as much as possible.
We went to see Laia Abril's exhibition On Mass Hysteria / Une histoire de ma misogynie at the BAL, and I came away with mixed feelings. It's a hard-hitting exhibition, documenting with impressive rigor how, for centuries, women's pain and anger have been ignored, minimized, even ridiculed.
What Laia Abril highlights is the extent to which the notion of female “madness” or “hysteria” has been used as a tool to minimize and disqualify women's suffering. Whether in medicine, fundamental rights or the domestic sphere, history (and current affairs) is full of examples where women's pain and complaints are seen as hysterical crises rather than legitimate claims. And even today, we all carry this legacy: we learn to silence our anger, to doubt our own pain, and sometimes even to doubt that of others.
Art, like protest, then becomes a space of liberation. It's a place where we can finally express the anger that has been denied us for centuries.
Maurer, Dóra: Reversible and Interchangeable Phases of Motion No. 4 (1972/1997)Acrylic and silver gelatin print mounted on fiberboard
The exhibition is divided into two parts. In the basement, a room where numbered files hang on the walls: each relates a case of mass hysteria, accompanied by research, medical documents and newspaper articles. The files can be read as you walk through the room, and some are up to 50 pages long. In the center of the room, multimedia installations immerse us in three specific cases: one in Mexico, one in Cambodia, one in the United States. Images, sound, fragments of testimonies. Upstairs, another atmosphere: a video shows feminist demonstrations around the world, angry crowds, shouted and sung demands, and sometimes clashes. The protest scenes are paralleled by the cases of “mass hysteria” studied below. Here, the link between oppression and revolt becomes clear.
I greatly admire the research behind this exhibition. You can feel the immense effort, certainly very difficult both academically and emotionally, that has gone into unearthing these stories, contextualizing and analyzing them. But this is also where I felt frustrated. The exhibition relies heavily, perhaps too heavily, on raw information. The number of texts to be read is considerable, and the experience becomes almost an immersion in a research project rather than an art exhibition.
I would have liked the boundary between art and research to have been less clear, the sensory experience to have been stronger, the emotion to have come not only from reading and analysis, but also from more present artistic interpretations. There's something too dense, too didactic, which in my opinion prevents us from fully feeling the extent of what this “collective hysteria” really means for the author.
Does the chosen format allow us to feel all the power? I'm not sure.
Perhaps what's been missing is a space where art, emotion and anger can come together.
On view until May 17 at Espace Le Bal.
17.03.25
Art and language: how to make art more accessible through language?
Artspeak and contemporary art snobbery
Why is the language we use to talk about contemporary art sometimes so opaque? Whether in exhibition catalogs, artists' statements or reviews, sometimes a text that's supposed to explain a work actually makes it more incomprehensible and inaccessible.
Sometimes, we find ourselves in front of a work of art whose purpose we'd like to know, whose artistic path we'd like to follow, and we end up a little disappointed, sometimes with ourselves, because we haven't understood a thing. Talking to my non-artist friends, I often hear “ah no, I don't like contemporary art at all”, and the more I delve into this discussion, the more I realize that contemporary art can often repel a public of the curious for one very simple reason: language.
The description of a work is supposed to make it accessible to anyone outside the work and its author's artistic universe. If you need a lot of references and art-historical knowledge to understand a piece, I think there's a problem. It's art that's a bit of a snob, after all, because it's only supposed to appeal to a public that's already quite knowledgeable.
Is it possible to talk seriously about contemporary art without falling into this unnecessary complexity?
L’IAE : a worldwide artistic language
International Art English (IAE) is a specialized version of the language used to talk about art on a global scale. Inspired by thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, it emerged in academic and institutional circles in the 20ᵉ century, before gradually infiltrating galleries and museums.
This way of talking about art is characterized by an academic tone, philosophical references and often abstract concepts. Its role is to structure artistic discourse and propose a common language to an increasingly international and globalized milieu.
But it poses a problem: by dint of being too codified, it becomes a tool of exclusion rather than a means of communication.
Maurer, Dóra: Reversible and Interchangeable Phases of Motion No. 4 (1972/1997)Acrylic and silver gelatin print mounted on fiberboard
ArtSpeak : precision or pretension?
In his book Artspeak, Robert Atkins set out to list and define the vocabulary of the art world. His aim was, in fact, to make this language more accessible. However, it has gradually taken on a negative connotation, today denoting an unnecessarily complicated discourse.
Today, this language sometimes serves only to mask a lack of content and real depth, or to reinforce a kind of intellectual exclusivity.
An Artspeak text is characterized by :
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A pompous, pretentious style
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Formulas that seem interchangeable from one text to the next (a bit like artistic chatGPT)
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A vague relationship to the work described
An exemple of Artspeak :
“The artist deconstructs neo-capitalist narratives through a pastiche of pre-modern elements.”
Behind this sentence, what do we really understand about the work? What audience are we really aiming for when we describe a work with such complexity?
How to avoid the Artspeak ?
Expressing yourself clearly about art doesn't mean simplifying everything or stopping talking about key theoretical concepts. Rather, it's about making ideas accessible, precise and interesting to a varied audience outside the artistic elite.
To talk about art without losing your audience, I think you first need to know who you're talking to. An expert, a collector or someone who's simply curious won't have the same expectations, so it's best to adapt your language. Simple, precise words are often more effective than overloaded sentences. And if a technical term is essential, you can define it clearly to avoid any confusion.
The most important thing, I think, is to stay focused on the work itself. Rather than getting bogged down in theory, it's better to describe what you see: the colors, the shapes, the materials, the emotion it gives off, the purpose. Telling the story behind the work or giving a little background on the artist and his era also helps to make it more meaningful. With concrete descriptions and clear reference points, we help the public to better understand without needing a dictionary at hand.
Art is a language in itself. It would be a pity if the words surrounding it made it hermetic.
Ingmar Bergman (1978)
Sources and related articles :
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Atkins, Robert, Artspeak : a guide to contemporary ideas, movements, and buzzwords, 1945 to the present
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Maurer, Dóra: Reversible and Interchangeable Phases of Motion No. 4 (1972/1997)
11.03.25
Women in art and culture: censorship, anonymity and recognition
The power of a name
Throughout history, women pioneers of the artistic and cultural world have often been subjected to censorship and anonymity. Today, after years of struggle, are they finally receiving the recognition they deserve?
On the occasion of March 8, International Women's Rights Day, it seems essential to me to recall that access to art and culture has historically been denied to women. Long excluded from education and relegated to traditional or domestic roles, those who managed to create art were often obliged to publish under a pseudonym.
"I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
– Virginia Woolf
Some names
Despite the difficulties imposed by the society of their time and their country, several women - many of whose names have been forgotten by the collective memory - managed to make their mark on artistic and cultural history. Here are just a few examples:
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Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), a Mexican painter, challenged gender norms through her self-portraits. Her work tackles themes such as motherhood, sexuality and abortion, making her a feminist icon.
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Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), a pioneer of feminism, reflected on the status of women in art and culture, notably in A Room of One's Own and Orlando. In A Room of One's Own, she already highlighted the difficulty for women to exist as artists.
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Kathryn Bigelow (1951-), American director and producer, was the first woman to win an Oscar for “Best Director”, breaking stereotypes in a male-dominated industry.
But where are we today?
Despite slight progress (which seems to be taking a step backwards of late), art and culture are still marked by strong gender inequalities. Of course, we're hearing more and more women's names at art fairs and in galleries, but this semblance of parity hides an ugly reality: works of art created by men are worth far more than those created by women.
Let's not forget the facts: a recent study by Art Basel and UBS showed that women artists have accounted for just 2% of the global art auction market in recent years. (The most expensive work by a male artist, Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, with a price tag of $450 million, was worth ten times Georgia O'Keeffe's record for her Jimson Weed).
Why is it so important to talk about it, and why does it concern us all?
Through media, literature, music and art, the cultural sector holds immense power: it can either perpetuate gender inequalities, or become a means of radical transformation. By showcasing rich and varied representations of gender identities, and appreciating women's art at a value at least equal to that of their male counterparts, we can actively deconstruct sexist norms and combat systemic inequalities. It's not just about inclusion, but about claiming and promoting a worldview where women and marginalized gender identities fully occupy the space and value that belong to them.
Let's not remain anonymous
A name may seem insignificant, but it carries a lot of power. To transform this prevailing dynamic of inequality, and to achieve genuine recognition for women in the art world, it's up to all of us to reimagine and demand our own place in art. In this sense, it seems imperative to me not to let the names of women artists fade into oblivion, but to underline them, to shout them out loud, to engrave them in the collective memory, until they resonate with as much force as those of their male counterparts. Art has never been neutral: let's not be either. Only by recognizing the work and the names of their female creators will it be possible to move towards true equity in art.
Source of data :