The works of the three artists invited to these Three Moral Tales are not that of moralists, but somehow assume a kind of moral dimension, as they present themselves as critical allegories. Joëlle de La Casinière, Ana Jotta and Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven make use of fables and sometimes caricatures to observe and criticize the cruelty of human relationships. The “moral tales” narrated by these three artists scrutinize representations of evil, and mock hierarchies, traditions and social order. By doing so, they also follow up on a certain spirit of the iconoclastic avant-gardes of the early 20th century.

French artist Joëlle de la Casinière, Portuguese Ana Jotta and Flemish Anne Mie Van Kerckhoven have in common to pay no fealty to trends of contemporary art. Moreover, they fought unwaveringly throughout their respective careers the need to see their work being given an “official line”. Instead, they stood aside, went underground or remained indifferent to the twists and turns of the art market and institutions. They sometimes created surrogate characters, hid, or playfully modified their names to react to the branding of identity in the artworld, and to the imposed marginalization that they had to cope with as women artists, as did artists living in peripheral geographies. In a way, paradoxically, being marginalized encouraged a calculated versatility of media and styles, and the invention of an idiosyncratic vocabulary, while total freedom remained their one and only rule.

道德故事是整个18世纪在欧洲特别流行的一种文学体裁。由于存在方式和行为方式与分配给社会角色和流派的惯例紧密相连，这个时代特有的理性和自由思想的兴起，开始重新组织既定模式的所谓 “自然秩序”。通过寓言和讽刺，道德故事对当时的社会关系和等级制度表达了尖锐的批评意见，经常使用激进的讽刺和残酷，如乔纳森-斯威夫特或萨德侯爵的故事，来破译这个早期资本主义时代的不为人知的规则。

被邀请参加这三个道德故事的三位艺术家的作品并不是道德家的作品，但在某种程度上承担了一种道德维度，因为他们把自己作为批判性的寓言。Joëlle de La Casinière、Ana Jotta和Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven利用寓言，有时利用漫画来观察和批评人类关系的残酷性。这三位艺术家讲述的 “道德故事 “仔细审查了邪恶的表现，并嘲笑等级制度、传统和社会秩序。通过这样做，他们也跟进了20世纪初偶像派先锋派的某种精神。

法国艺术家Joëlle de la Casinière、葡萄牙人Ana Jotta和佛兰德人Anne Mie Van Kerckhoven的共同点是不向当代艺术的潮流献媚。此外，在他们各自的职业生涯中，他们坚定不移地与看到他们的作品被赋予 “官方路线 ” 的需要作斗争。相反，他们站在一边，转入地下，或者对艺术市场和机构的曲折无动于衷。她们有时会创造出代理角色，隐藏起来，或者俏皮地修改自己的名字，以应对艺术界的身份烙印，以及她们作为女性艺术家必须应对的强加的边缘化，生活在边缘地区的艺术家也是如此。在某种程度上，矛盾的是，被边缘化鼓励了精心策划的媒体和风格的多样性，并发明了一个特异的词汇，而完全自由仍然是他们唯一的规则。