Due to the success of the exhibition, Caumont will close exceptionally at 7 p.m. on Saturdays 7, 14 and 21 March.
Conference
The history of brothels
Saturday, June 27, 2026Conference presented by Léa Lefebvre
Relegated to the margins of social and moral order, brothels nevertheless occupy a central place in the collective imagination. The brothel scene has established itself as a genre combining social observation and moral reflection on vice and desire. In the 19th century, brothels were places of aesthetic and social reflection, becoming privileged locations for observing bodies, power relations, and gazes, in a context of urban transformation, regulation of bodies, and upheaval in hierarchies. Artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec developed a new pictorial language there, that of modernity. Between figures of working women, modern muses, and femmes fatales, these scenes question the female condition, society itself, and the position of the artist and the viewer, between fantasy and social reality.
Presentation of the speaker
Léa Lefebvre
Léa Lefebvre teaches History of Contemporary Art and History of Photography at Sciences Po Aix.
A graduate in Art History from Université Paris-Nanterre and in Cultural Policies and Political Science from Sciences Po Aix, she has focused her studies on the notion of subversion. In her writing and research, Léa Lefebvre apprehends the world through the prism of intersecting social, political and artistic contexts.
She has worked as a studio manager in a gallery, is editor and artistic coordinator for a digital magazine (La Zone), and co-founded a collective of artists and curators, dedicated to the production of immersive works and scenographies, as well as curating exhibitions. She accompanies young artists in their practice, notably by writing texts on their productions and approaches.
