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2008 Spring

Kirsten Dufour: You did not have a name; You had a group

Danish artist Kirsten Dufour speaks with MoMA Curatorial Assistant Gretchen L. Wagner.

Kirsten Dufour

Courtesy the artist

Gretchen L. Wagner: Kirsten, you and fellow students at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen came together in 1968 to form the group Kanonklubben (Canon club). What factors, political and cultural, inspired you to act collectively?

Kirsten Dufour: The specific thing about the Kanonklubben and the political aspect of it did not come from civil rights movements like in America. You did not have that.  Of course we had the Vietnam War and you had 1968 in France. There were experimental artistic groups in Copenhagen at the time—Joseph Beuys and Fluxus would come and sometimes perform.  We ourselves didn’t participate since we were part of the younger generation, but we knew about it. We were young artists who could not accept the way the Academy was run.  We rebelled against art. We rebelled against the education system.  We did not—I did not—have any political background at the time. Our political studies came later.

GW: What was it about academia that particularly upset you and fellow participants of Kanonklubben?

KD: We were addressing the methods of teaching, how we wanted to work with art. As young students, we stood up and said that we could teach ourselves. We said that we wanted our own department without any teachers. We wanted an open forum so whoever wanted to join could participate. This actually happened for two years. The Academy gave us a space, and students came from all the different disciplines: sculpture, painting, even architecture. 

GW: You would conduct your own classes?

KD: No, discussion groups. Actually, together we made a manifesto. I was studying in Italy at the time, but when I returned to Denmark I became part of it. This manifesto is in the WACK! exhibition, and I think it represents the best statement for how artists should work with art. I really believe in self-education and open collective group activity.

GW:  Do you think the work that the Kanonklubben did had an effect on the Copenhagen Academy? Did it effect change?

KD: No, because, you could say it was not historicized. After two years, they asked some of us to become professors, but we didn’t accept that. At that time you did not have a name, you had a group.

GW: Things happened rather quickly for you. In April 1970, the performance Damebillider (Women’s images, a.k.a 7 Pictures of Women) took place. For this, you and other women created environments for communal living and working. Here, and throughout your later work in Africa and other communities, there is a sentiment that making art is not separate from life. How do you view this relationship?

KD: Some people in the group had heard of Allan Kaprow’s ideas on the undoing of the artist. I didn’t have any idea about art theory at the time. Damebillider was a big experiment for all of us. Just imagine: you give up everything you know. You know you can draw, you know you can do all this stuff, and you give it up. Whatever you do, it is completely new.  You had to let go.

GW: How do you view your work and the work of Kanonklubben in the context of WACK!?

KD: Of course, the Kanonklubben was a feminist work. Although it was a mixed group, it was characterized by a great number of very active women artists who were given room to develop an art exhibition. I took a position because feminism is different things. Solidarity between women was important then and more so today with workers and women in the Third World. As you see in the images in WACK!, some of us wanted to show women together. We wanted to document how women were represented in the media through images. Women were always represented alone, except in the Third World and in Communist countries. The Damebillider is about solidarity.  There is a flow: first you view the situation of women, then you look at what we can do to react on that situation.