Sculpture #2. 1968

–

Fold Sculpture #2. 1968

–

KIRSTEN JUSTESEN is an artist based in Copenhagen whose activities comprise a wide range of genres, from body art and performance to sculpture and installation. She was part of the Danish avant-garde scene of the 1960s, where she became a pioneering figure within the three-dimensional modes of art that incorporate the artist’s own body as material. These experiments led her in the direction of so-called feminist art, which challenged traditional value systems during the 1970s. Her later works constitute broader investigations of the relationships between body, space and language.

My Skulptur II is a cardboard box with a black-and-white photograph of me inside. So it’s identical with the basic sculpture: the cardboard box is a plinth you can walk round, and there’s a woman in it without any clothes on. And what is more, it’s the artist who has entered into her own work. It can be folded up and it’s easy to transport. It is nothing less than the ideal sculpture; it represents a straightforward sculptural analysis. That’s where it comes from.

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. My generation of artists was taught to look at art with a male gaze and we are still fighting that one-dimensional gaze. – by KIRSTEN JUSTESEN