CIRCA proudly presents LIMBO, a contemporary still life by Michèle Lamy that marks the first time in history a female nude has appeared on the iconic Piccadilly Lights, broadcasting across screens in Berlin, Melbourne and Tokyo every evening throughout November at 20:22 local time.

Born in 1943, Michèle Lamy defies any categorisation: performer, defense lawyer, designer, producer, restaurateur, student of Deleuze and boxer. Her new film, LIMBO, created especially for CIRCA 2022, poses an un-retouched and tender meditation of female autonomy, love and vulnerability at a time when women’s bodies are being politicised across the globe.

 Michèle Lamy comments:

Dark, disturbing, beautiful, Limbo is a word that best describes the world we are living in today, CIRCA 2022. It was scrawled in giant letters across a post it note my dear friend Hans Ulrich Obrist gifted me a few weeks ago, written by the late Etel Adnan who has inspired me endlessly. In the past I’ve questioned ‘What are we fighting for?’ but today this question has become a fight for our survival. Our right to express ourselves as women without consequence. Today, I bare all in the hope of inspiring truth, love and courage at this defining moment.

Featuring Lamy reclining on her bed for 2.5 minutes – the only movement being that of her body slowly breathing and eyes blinking, with her gaze fixed tenderly at the viewer – LIMBO inadvertently references the classical reclining nude in art history. From Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus through to Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus, Manet’s Olympia and even more recent contemporary expressions of female beauty in western advertising campaigns – Michèle Lamy challenges notions of the male gaze with her female led team, notably co-directors Amanda Demme and Mollie Mills.

Michèle Lamy is an iconic figure who defies categorization: she studied law, and during the 60s and 70s, worked as a defense lawyer, while studying with the postmodern philosopher Gilles Deleuze and was involved in the May 1968 protests in Paris before working as a cabaret dancer. 

A renaissance woman, Lamy has been a clothing designer, performer, film producer, and restaurateur alongside co-founding Owenscorp.

On a daily basis, Lamy functions as the producer of the RO furniture collection, working closely with the artisans in the construction process as well as directing the positioning and presentation of the works, including shows at The Musée D’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris and MOCA LA. In 2014 Lamy created ‘LAMYLAND’, an umbrella term for her independent creative projects and endeavours, bringing together all the key elements integral to her practice – experimentation, collaboration, storytelling and creation. In a sense it is a natural progression to her renowned Les Deux Cafe, the LA cabaret spot she founded, curated and ran for many years.