‘Even My Most Polite Work Turns Out Deeply Fucked Up’

Marianna Simnett’s work is complicated. Across video, performance, painting, sculpture, and more, she draws out the messy, conflicted emotions that we tend to suppress. Inspired by ancient myths and fairy tales, as well as by cutting-edge technology, Simnett’s pieces careen between sadism and humour. When I ask the artist about the underlying malice in her work, she laughs: ‘I have tried to be less cruel towards my viewer, but even my most polite work turns out deeply fucked up and violent. I can’t help it.’

Simnett takes on many roles, whether soundtracking videos with her own flute, creating expressive costumes, editing footage, or guiding machine-learning programmes. ‘Artist–director is my main role,’ she tells me. ‘A lot of my decision-making is very instinctive and immediate. I can’t just hand over a brief and expect someone else to do it.’

This mercurial, multifaceted approach reflects the emotional and moral complexity of her work. ‘I think [my process] involves grappling a sense of freedom away from constraint. Art for me has always been about trying to break out of the straitjacket. I feel liberated when I pick up a new medium.’ She similarly muddies the distinctions between old and new. ‘I really disregard the ancient–modern dichotomy. It’s why I return to a lot of old myths and stories and couple them with things which feel new and high tech.’

In recent years, Simnett has had institutional exhibitions at the New Museum in New York and the Julia Stoschek Collection in Berlin—the two cities in which she lives and works—while her video installation The Severed Tail (2022) was a central piece in the 59th Venice Biennale. It explored the tail as a ‘lost link’ between humans and animals, with fetish dynamics used as a reminder to reconnect with our beastly natures.

This month, Simnett’s latest solo show, Charades, investigating masquerade and power, runs at Société in Berlin (2 May–28 June 2025). A new video, Leda Was a Swan (2025), channels the Ancient Greek myth in which Zeus, disguised in bird form, rapes the Spartan queen. Simnett has veered towards the legend before with her work Hyena and Swan in the Midst of Sexual Congress (2019)—a grotesque yet funny sculpture which fulfils its title explicitly.

This time, the artist confronts the myth head on. The new video features Simnett as both Leda and Zeus, with a swan hand puppet enabling an act of masturbation. ‘It continually surprises me how many times a myth can get retold,’ says Simnett. ‘There are as many versions as there are imaginations.’ She is intrigued by how a simple language switch can change the meaning—Leda Was a Swan suggesting a singular protagonist and aggressor—and how easily our understanding of power can shift. ‘I wanted to make something criminal into a game, into something private, tender, funny. It was about taking ownership of Leda’s subjectivity.’

The artist was inspired by a fresco discovered in Pompeii in 2018, in what was thought to be a bedroom. This intimate setting highlights the ambiguity of the original myth, with historical sources framing Zeus’ violence as a seduction.

Simnett draws parallels between the blurred violence of the myth and the gaslighting that still surrounds abuses of power. ‘I want to show how radically mutable stories can be if you flip your perspective,’ she says. ‘One subtle shift and the whole world changes ... We’re living in a weird, cloudy moment. A lot of what we consume is designed to distract us or distort reality. It’s difficult for us to hold contradictory thoughts at the same time and understand them both as true. There are so many conflicting personas living in my body that don’t want to be friends; I think that’s why I gravitate towards these kinds of tales.’

Charades features a series of paintings, some of which Simnett describes as ‘psychologically dark’. One depicts two elongated boots shoving a pair of bare feet from behind (Scored, 2025). ‘This actually happened to me when I was a kid,’ she says. ‘This guy on the bus started pushing me into the wall and I didn’t know until I was trapped.’ Another shows an auditorium of swans that might be viewed as dying or dancing on an opera stage (Mute, 2025). On the lighter side, Groom (2025) shows a vanity table with a pubic-hair comb, while Caked (2025) depicts a giant wedding cake that has a bride topper but is missing the groom.

Simnett’s sculptures interrogate objects that assert power. She has been working on a series of bronze crowns since her Venice installation, in which the pig protagonist wears a tortuous crown of thorns. ‘Crowns are these opulent, ceremonious objects that are supposed to deem someone the victim or all powerful.’ For Charades, she is exhibiting a series of what she calls ‘reliquaries’—body parts encrusted with jewels and pearls. One depicts an overly squeezed nipple with milk being extracted. There is also a disembodied arm embellished like a wedding cake and a series of merkins made from real hair. Simnett draws on the etymology of the word, which comes from ‘malkin’, a derogatory Middle English term used to describe lower class women. As with many of her pieces, she tells me, this amusing line of works reveals murkier layers. ‘It’s all a masquerade wrapped up in class, status, and power.’ —[O]

Marianna Simnett: Charades is on view at Société, Berlin, from 2 May to 28 June 2025.

Main image: Marianna Simnett, Leda Was a Swan (2024) (production still). Courtesy the artist and Société, Berlin. Photo: Leander Ott.