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2008 Spring

Kirsten Justesen: My Body as Material

Danish artist Kirsten Justesen speaks with MoMA Curatorial Assistant Esther Adler.

Kirsten Justesen

Ice Portrait

Courtesy the artist

Esther Adler: Sculpture II (1968) has often been read as a feminist critique: a photograph of a woman, curled up over her knees, is situated in a cardboard box. Some might say she’s trapped. However, this was not really your intention in making the work. At the time, were you shocked or upset by this reading?

Kirsten Justesen: I was surprised by the reading; I thought that my early formal, Minimalist three–dimensional investigations were well known. Sculpture II is very different from my more humorous works dealing with feminist battle issues, even though I also used my own body as a tool. Now my work is very often read as feminist statements. I use my own body since it is at hand. It happens to be a female body. I am not upset at all; it just activates an emblematic version of gender and gaze in art. My generation of artists was taught to look at art with a male gaze and we are still fighting that one-dimensional gaze.

EA: Did the reaction to Sculpture II affect the direction of the work you made after it?

KJ: No, not at all. A reaction was sparked ten years later when the work travelled to institutions in Europe and art critics began to deal with feminist issues.

EA: You’ve continued to use your body as prime material for your art—do you find that you now face limitations that you didn’t as an emerging artist?

KJ: Since my body tool has now served me for sixty-four years, and since I have—so far—managed without Photoshop, I have started considering dressing up. Or at least making  a dress, as in my Ice Dress series.

EA: Yes, you have begun to use ice as a material—ice that melts over time, through interactions with the body. Is there an environmental/political element to these works? Or maybe this reading is being forced by the current focus on global warming and environmental issues….

KJ: My first MELTING TIME works were staged in Greenland in 1980, and even  today I am still investigating meeting points for surfaces using my body as a tool. The environmental and political aspect of these works has been growing in proportion to the consciousness of global warming. That was not my intention in 1980. I don’t know about any artistic activities that are not connected to real life!