| art.description.project | 2013 marked 100 years since women gained full voting rights in Norway. SKMU chose to focus on works by women artists this year, starting out by analyzing the contents of the collection of the museum, looking at its balance between works by men and by women and at how the purchasing budget had been used in relation to this - historically and today.
The project also inquired into what the works in the museum’s collection can tell us about the history of women-both general history and womens’s position in art history. Can any of the works be linked to women’s conditions, rights and aspirations at different points in time? A further research question was to try to determine whether there is a uniquely female visual language.
Agains the background of this extensive research, it was evident that even though Scandinavia is considered to be far ahead in terms of sexual liberation, gender equality and equal rights, the feminist art scene is relatively unknown to those who are not involved in it. Due to the inadequate documentation of art and feminism in Scandinavia, SKMU put together the exhibition The Beginning Is Aways Today, featuring 40 Scandinavian feminist artists, and also launched a book edited by museum director Karin Hindsbo, that sheds light on important aspects of the field of feminist art from the last twenty years.
The book contains a series of comissioned texts and also introduces the work of the artists participating in the exhibition of the same name:
Lotta Antonsson, Elisabet Apelmo, Pia Arke, Bob Smith, Catti Brandelius, Peter Brandt, Nanna Debois Buhl, Kajsa Dahlberg, Ewa Einhorn, Åsa Elzén, Unn Fahlstrøm, Roxy Farhat, Fine Art Union, FRANK, Unni Gjertsen, Trine Mee Sook Gleerup, Jenny Grönvall, Annika von Hausswolff, High Heel Sisters, Leif Holmstrand, Maryam Jafri, Dorte Jelstrup, Jesper Just, Jane Jin Kaisen, Line Skywalker Karlström, Kvinder på Værtshus, Ane Lan (alias Eivind Reierstad), Lotte Konow Lund, Annika Lundgren, Jannicke Låker, Malmö Fria Kvinnouniversitet (MFK), Eline Mugaas, Ellen Nyman, Radikal pedagogik, Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen, Annica Karlsson Rixon , Joanna Rytel, Katya Sander, Mari Slaattelid, Lisa Strömbeck, Vibeke Tandberg, Lisa Vipola, YES! Association / Föreningen JA!
The title of the exhibition and the book is a quote from the eighteenth-century feminist pioneer Mary Wollstonecraft, emphasizing that some battles never end, but must be renewed each and every day. | sv |
