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Manuela Klerkx
Identity and physicality in art
The concept of identity occupies us daily, whether consciously or unconsciously. You can’t pick up a newspaper or watch a film without stumbling across this theme: from personal and genetic to social, cultural and national identity, this theme concerns us all. In this collection, I discuss the work of six artists who, between the late eighties and today, have been working with the theme of identity. They visualise concepts such as gender, non-binarity, physicality, sexual orientation, women's rights and queerness in completely different ways and in keeping with their own generation.
Writing this piece made me realise how much has changed over the past 30 years. How much freedom we have gained on the one hand and how much we have lost on the other. What issues related to identity and physicality will be addressed 30 years from now? One thing is certain: it is the artists and their independent views that keep us sharp. Sometimes it is better not to open a newspaper, but to look at a work of art. You may very well understand more about the world…and yourself.
Writing this piece made me realise how much has changed over the past 30 years. How much freedom we have gained on the one hand and how much we have lost on the other. What issues related to identity and physicality will be addressed 30 years from now? One thing is certain: it is the artists and their independent views that keep us sharp. Sometimes it is better not to open a newspaper, but to look at a work of art. You may very well understand more about the world…and yourself.
0 Media items ᛫ 6 Available artworks
0 Shows ᛫ 2 Highlights ᛫ 1 Recommendations
I remember the first time I saw a work of art by Sylvie Fleury (Genève, 1961) sometime in the early 1990s. It was a gold-plated shopping cart that revolved on a circular platform. Fleury immediately made a name for herself with her installations of shopping bags, collections of luxurious women's shoes, advertising packaging for renowned fashion houses such as Chanel and advertising inscriptions for expensive cosmetics, which she introduced to the art world. Initially, this combination of advertising and fashion was not considered art, but it slowly became clear and people realised that with her provocations, Fleury actually did nothing more than hold up a mirror to us about our love of consumerism, appearance and glam culture. With Fleury, Duchamp had become a woman who has introduced not so much an object, but rather the effect of marketing and advertising to the gallery and museum world. This was the beginning of the end of an era. From now on, themes that were initially (and falsely) associated with female identity – such as shopping, cosmetics and fashion – would become part of the art world. During the same period, more attention was paid to gay rights and within the zeitgeist of the optimistic and prosperous 1990s, a hedonistic climate emerged that manifested itself in huge parties, new styles and subcultures. This all came to an abrupt standstill on 9/11 and the world has not been the same since.
Represented by Galerie van Gelder
Represented by Galerie van Gelder
2 Media items ᛫ 20 Available artworks
8 Shows ᛫ 8 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
A contemporary of Fleury who broke with clichés about identity and sexuality early on, as well as the distinction between autonomous and free work, fashion and art is Paul Kooiker (1964, Rotterdam).
Paul Kooiker, De Volkskrant, 08.12.202 (interview: Karolien Knols)
Although a sought-after photographer in the fashion world – working for leading American fashion designer Rick Owens as early as 2012 – he seems completely detached from the prevailing beauty paradigms. And although Kooiker initially knew nothing about fashion, he gets on well with ground-breaking fashion designers like Owens because of their mutual interest in experimenting, which can only lead to new insights into art and fashion and new definitions of beauty.
Paul Kooiker
In his photography, Kooiker creates a kind of uneasy beauty based on dark desires, fetishism and subconscious dreams that are so close to the surface that there is no escaping them. He conducts research into the human body and postures in which he – much like a sculptor – kneads the body into a sculpture. In doing so, he transcends traditional gender roles and even uses real hair and wigs. Kooiker explains, “The hair is in a different world than the body. Hair also often takes on a life of its own in my work, as do legs, arms and hands.”
Represented by tegenboschvanvreden
If commissioned photography hangs in a museum,
the difference with autonomous work no longer exists.
the difference with autonomous work no longer exists.
Although a sought-after photographer in the fashion world – working for leading American fashion designer Rick Owens as early as 2012 – he seems completely detached from the prevailing beauty paradigms. And although Kooiker initially knew nothing about fashion, he gets on well with ground-breaking fashion designers like Owens because of their mutual interest in experimenting, which can only lead to new insights into art and fashion and new definitions of beauty.
Intimate and anonymous,
twisting in every direction,
that’s when things get interesting.
twisting in every direction,
that’s when things get interesting.
In his photography, Kooiker creates a kind of uneasy beauty based on dark desires, fetishism and subconscious dreams that are so close to the surface that there is no escaping them. He conducts research into the human body and postures in which he – much like a sculptor – kneads the body into a sculpture. In doing so, he transcends traditional gender roles and even uses real hair and wigs. Kooiker explains, “The hair is in a different world than the body. Hair also often takes on a life of its own in my work, as do legs, arms and hands.”
Represented by tegenboschvanvreden
2 Media items ᛫ 16 Available artworks
2 Shows ᛫ 1 Highlights ᛫ 2 Recommendations
In the work of Sarah Mei Herman (1980, Amsterdam), young adults appear to explore the boundaries of friendship, love relationships and family relationships and we experience a sense of vulnerability and ambiguity. The vulnerability of personal identity in countries or communities where, for example, homosexuality is prohibited and there is a stigma surrounding queer people, is a recurring theme in Herman's photography. Growing up as an only child, she is interested in the relationship between siblings and in education in general because, according to Herman, it plays a major role in consolidating personal identity. She shows how memories are shaped in part by the physical environment through the concept of 'home', in the sense of a human construct referring to the sights, smells and sounds that create an emotional connection. You might describe Herman's photography as documentary, as a visual representation of the evolution of the 'self', or self-identity, that underpins the work.
Represented by Galerie Caroline O'Breen
Represented by Galerie Caroline O'Breen
4 Media items ᛫ 79 Available artworks
6 Shows ᛫ 0 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
Women, women's bodies, female sexuality and women's rights are still daily subjects of political debate and violence. Not only in our society, but in all parts of the world. Increasingly, bills are appearing in the U.S. that are intended to limit women's access to safe abortion and effective birth control, to redefine rape in narrower terms than ‘violent, forced sexual intercourse’ and to minimise women's right to equal pay for equal work. Sarah Maple (1985, UK) is an artist who has been standing up for women's rights for many years. Her most recent installation Why Do Men Hate Women?, which also includes an investigation and interactive performance around a lifelike doll of a naked woman lying on a chaise longue in a position commonly used in many portraits by men in art history. It was a work that immediately reminded me of Sylvia Sleigh (1916-2010, UK), a naturalised American artist and women's rights activist who became best known for her paintings in which she challenged stereotypes of women portrayed by men – in traditional poses and positions. She often referred to paintings by such famous painters as Diego Vélazquez, Tiziano and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres and used art critics, female artists and her husband Lawrence Alloway as models. Maple takes Sleigh's discourse a step further by depicting the female doll – she does not use a living woman as a model – not only nude, while self-consciously looking at the painter, but ‘using’ her body as a canvas to ask the question: ‘Why do men hate women'? In other words, the woman is no longer an object serving the gaze of the other, but she herself is the subject looking back and asking a question.
For her surprising answers, visit the website WhyDoMenHateWomen.com
Represented by Koch X Bos Gallery
For her surprising answers, visit the website WhyDoMenHateWomen.com
Represented by Koch X Bos Gallery
0 Media items ᛫ 4 Available artworks
3 Shows ᛫ 0 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
In 2018, Bobbi Essers (2001, Enschede) won the Buning Brongers Prize, a biennial Dutch art prize awarded to promising young visual artists. Even before graduating from the HKU in Utrecht, she already had an impressive list of upcoming exhibitions and awards to her name and articles in leading art magazines. Essers' paintings – copied from photos or from memory – look like enlarged snapshots of friends in which we recognise the nocturnal atmosphere, clothing and tattoos that belong to youth and queer culture. Essers likes to explore gender roles and anonymous, non-binary men and women by, for example, not painting heads, but legs with a miniskirt and hair. In her large works, she often combines two or more photos and/or memories, making them more layered and complex. The smaller paintings are usually the direct result of pictures taken with her smartphone. But with her large paintings, Essers paints a highly visually and physically attractive image of people, comparable to how we experience them on social media. However, what makes them so unique is not the individual aspect, but the anonymity of the person and representation of an era. In other words, Essers is not concerned with capturing a specific person, but creating an image of a queer culture as part of our living environment.
I consider my work mainly as a worship of my friends and my love for them and as
questioning gender roles and the complex relationship with masculinity and
creating your own family. We know no shame
and celebrate our love.
Represented by Galerie Stigter Van Doesburg
I consider my work mainly as a worship of my friends and my love for them and as
questioning gender roles and the complex relationship with masculinity and
creating your own family. We know no shame
and celebrate our love.
Represented by Galerie Stigter Van Doesburg