On Domesticity

Birgit Jürgenssen, Ohne Titel (Selbst mit Fellchen)  1974, printed 2011

Ohne Titel (Selbst mit Fellchen) is a colour photograph originally produced by the Austrian artist Birgit Jürgenssen in 1974. Its German title translates as Untitled (Self with Little Fur). It is a half-length self-portrait of the artist, whose eyes and nose are covered by a fox’s face taken from a fur stole. She wears a turquoise woollen cloth with a dark pattern, poncho style, covering her body. She appears to lean slightly against a light wall and her pink lips are pursed. The image was reprinted under the supervision of the artist’s estate in 2011 in an edition of eighteen, of which this copy is number two.

Birgit Jürgenssen, Jeder hat seine eigene Ansicht / Everyone Has His Own Point of View  1975, printed 2006

Jürgenssen was active in Vienna at the same time as VALIE EXPORT, yet her photographic works deal with the female body on a more intimate and poetic level. Here the artist turns her back to the viewer, with the titular sentence written with lipstick on her bare skin. This image can be interpreted as a visual pun on different levels: for example, the German word for ‘point of view’, Ansicht, implies the idea of a ‘frontal view’. Also, by expressing her statement in lipstick, Jürgenssen hints to the ways in which women’s identities are filtered and shaped by social conventions.

Gallery label, February 2016

Saburo Murakami, Sakuhin  1962

Kazuo Shiraga, Chikusei Shohao (Little King incarnated from Earthly Empty Star)  1961

Valérie Mréjen, Manufrance  2006

Heidi Bucher, Untitled (Blouse)  c.1976

Untitled (Blouse) c.1976 is a roughly rectangular cast of a blouse, folded in half and pressed flat. The blouse has a v-neck and short sleeves. This thin cast relief, made out of fabric and latex, is covered in a pale pink mother-of-pearl pigment with lightly iridescent properties. The work was made in the artist’s home country of Switzerland, where she returned in 1973 after a period living and working in the United States.

Kiki Smith, Basin  1990

Birgit Jürgenssen, Mattress Shoes  1973

Danh Võ, Aconitum souliei, Inflorescence portion / Lilium souliei [...]  2009

This is one of a group of six interrelated works by Danh Vo which are conceived as a single installation, although they can also be shown individually (see Tate T15621, T15622, T15623, P82574, P82575, P82576). The installation is inspired by Vo’s previous juxtapositions of appropriated images, texts and objects, and by groupings first made by the artist in 2009 and 2010 in important exhibitions in Paris, Basel and Cologne. The group comprises wallpaper, a framed handwritten letter, one editioned photogravure, one C-print and two wooden sculptures. As a group, the works connect the activities and experiences of French Catholic missionaries in Vietnam in the nineteenth century to the biography of the artist, whose family had to leave Vietnam in the mid-1970s. The two sculptural works further relate to Vo’s exploration of this history, in that they are made from walnut wood given to Vo by Craig McNamara, the son of former US Secretary of State Robert McNamara, whose escalation of the Vietnam War impacted the artist personally. Across the six works, three connected father-son relationships are in play: the French missionary Jean-Théophane Vénard and his father, to whom he wrote on the eve of his execution; Vo and his father Phung Vo; and Craig McNamara and his father Robert. Personal histories are seen to be entwined with larger stories of religion, colonialism and war.

Mona Hatoum, Marrow  1996

Marrow 1996 appears to be a direct replica of a children’s hospital cot made out of orange rubber so that it lies slumped on the floor. Reminiscent of a collapsed body, the work’s title refers to bone marrow, the soft spongy tissue found in the centre of most bones that is vital to healthy growth. The work demonstrates Hatoum’s characteristic manipulation of materials and their metaphorical potential. It is in the interface between these that the individual work’s affect resides. Marrow was made at a time when the artist had embarked on a series of works where domestic objects were transformed into uncanny, foreign or alien things and is one of several sculptures derived from an altered infant’s cot. A companion piece, Silence 1994, is a life-size crib made of glass whose potential to shatter threatens any child in its care. Similarly, Incommunicado 1993 (Tate T06988) presents the form of a bare, metal child’s cot with razor-thin cheese wires forming its base rather than a mattress, thereby presenting a place of danger rather than comfort and safety. Hatoum has said: ‘I see furniture as being very much about the body. It is usually about giving it support and comfort. I made a series of furniture pieces which are more hostile than comforting.’ (Quoted in Archer, Brett, de Zegher and Hatoum 1997, p.20.) Untitled (Wheelchair) 1998 (Tate T07497) is another work in Tate’s collection that makes hostile a supposedly safe, everyday object.

Kiki Smith, Untitled (Pink Bosoms)  1990

Yuko Nasaka, 18281 holes  1962

Danh Võ, 2.2.1861  2009

This is one of a group of six interrelated works by Danh Vo which are conceived as a single installation, although they can also be shown individually (see Tate T15621, T15622, T15623, P82574, P82575, P82576). The installation is inspired by Vo’s previous juxtapositions of appropriated images, texts and objects, and by groupings first made by the artist in 2009 and 2010 in important exhibitions in Paris, Basel and Cologne. The group comprises wallpaper, a framed handwritten letter, one editioned photogravure, one C-print and two wooden sculptures. As a group, the works connect the activities and experiences of French Catholic missionaries in Vietnam in the nineteenth century to the biography of the artist, whose family had to leave Vietnam in the mid-1970s. The two sculptural works further relate to Vo’s exploration of this history, in that they are made from walnut wood given to Vo by Craig McNamara, the son of former US Secretary of State Robert McNamara, whose escalation of the Vietnam War impacted the artist personally. Across the six works, three connected father-son relationships are in play: the French missionary Jean-Théophane Vénard and his father, to whom he wrote on the eve of his execution; Vo and his father Phung Vo; and Craig McNamara and his father Robert. Personal histories are seen to be entwined with larger stories of religion, colonialism and war.

Birgit Jürgenssen, Nest  1979, printed 2011

The black and white photograph Nest was taken in 1979 and reprinted in 2011 as a lambda print in an edition of eighteen under the supervision of the artist’s estate. Shot from above, it shows a bird’s nest with two small eggs in it nestled between the crossed legs of a figure wearing light-coloured, laddered nylon tights and sitting on a furry rug. The upper body of the figure is cropped out of the photograph. The shape of the legs and the nylon tights suggest that the subject is a woman, although the nest obscures the figure’s genitals. The vertical line of the seam of the stockings and the two eggs bisect the photograph, while the angle of the subject’s legs is almost symmetrical. The round nest is positioned just above the middle of the photograph.