The one exhibition that prompted a return to the National Gallery is Kienholz: The Hoerengracht. Lit with a soft red glow with music playing in the background, the installation transports you directly into the streets of Amsterdam's red light district.
In the installation of human figures in the streets, the life-size mannequins (cast from real humans) milling about at their doorways and in the little ground floor rooms. I'm lazy to describe it vividly- Liz Anderson's article in Spectator provides more information on the installation.
Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world. It's never going to go away. With this installation, the artists hope that the girls will gain police protection in places where brothels are legal.
The life size figures are intriguing. They've been cast from female friends of the Kienholzes, painted and dressed to the theme. I like how their faces are each framed by a cookie tin. There's a vacant look to their facial expressions. It's as though they're trying to distance themselves from it all, or it could their minds simply retreating into another world. They all wear this cookie tin with a glass top around their heads so that their faces show, as if to tell the visitors that they can sell their body, but not their mind and soul.
I like the details that go into each room. It isn't an art installation that I could breeze through and leave. The details are too arresting not to linger and peer through the windows.
In the installation of human figures in the streets, the life-size mannequins (cast from real humans) milling about at their doorways and in the little ground floor rooms. I'm lazy to describe it vividly- Liz Anderson's article in Spectator provides more information on the installation.
Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world. It's never going to go away. With this installation, the artists hope that the girls will gain police protection in places where brothels are legal.
The life size figures are intriguing. They've been cast from female friends of the Kienholzes, painted and dressed to the theme. I like how their faces are each framed by a cookie tin. There's a vacant look to their facial expressions. It's as though they're trying to distance themselves from it all, or it could their minds simply retreating into another world. They all wear this cookie tin with a glass top around their heads so that their faces show, as if to tell the visitors that they can sell their body, but not their mind and soul.
I like the details that go into each room. It isn't an art installation that I could breeze through and leave. The details are too arresting not to linger and peer through the windows.
2 comments:
"..The Madam, a frightening mannequin with a boar’s-skull head, stands near the entrance and her ‘girls’ of various shapes and sizes are placed round the room."
wow, no wonder you said what you said, especially your last para.
tuti: i didn't get to see that one though. The Madam's in the exhibition in Berlin currently. the one in London is slightly different and depicts the rooms rather and not so much of audience-interaction like the one in Berlin. I'd love to see that.
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