Apple of Discord: Louise Alexander Gallery, Porto Cervo

This summer, Louise Alexander Gallery is pleased to present 'Apple of Discord', a group exhibition bringing together over twenty established and emerging artists, each pushing the boundaries of traditional aesthetics to explore the complexities of beauty and form.

Opening on 5 July and on view until 8 September, new and unseen works will be presented for the first time with a showcase bridging the realms of photography, painting, sculpture, mixed media, and generative art, featuring a female strong artist line up including Rachel Maclean, Beth Frey, Cathrin Hoffmann, Oda Jaune, Guy Bourdin, Charlie Engman, and many more.

Drawing inspiration from René Magritte's seminal work 'The Treachery of Images', Apple of Discord invites viewers to look beyond the surface and engage in a visual conversation that defies the superficial. Like Magritte's famous pipe, the works assembled here defy initial impressions - a comb is not merely a tool, but a monument; a mannequin takes more than a bath, it evokes the Venus de Milo emerging both classical and incomplete, holding in her hand the apple of discord. Taking its name from this classical story - traditionally a symbol of coveted beauty that inevitably decays, the exhibition explores the deeper implications of our modern quest for affirmation beyond transient accolades.

In rejecting the confines of elitism and conservatism that often limit aesthetic appreciation, the exhibition playfully subverts established stereotypes of beauty. By engaging with the limits of form, dramatised and exaggerated bodily images strip objects of their functional identity, rendering the everyday into the surreal with nymph like stone sculptures, surrealist figures, and AI renders teasing out the elastic boundaries of taste and perception.