Pussy Power: New Exhibition Pays Tribute to Feminist Pioneer

This year Kirsten Justesen turns 80. Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg celebrates this occasion with Pussy Power, an exhibition featuring sex decades of work, during which Justesen has constantly challenged the traditional gender stereotypes and work categories of art history.

Throughout the years, the basis for Kirsten Justesen’s art has been her own body. In fact it has become a kind of signature. She has also persistently challenged the classical concept of sculpture: from her early works of the 1960s and 70s, which bear the stamp of a feminist aesthetic and a devil-may-care approach, to her more recent explorations of the relationship between body, space, language and time.

Maybe one way to get a real sense of the landmark nature of Justesen’s art is to take a look at the early work SCULPTURE II from Kunsten’s collection: a white-painted cardboard box with a photograph of a naked female body (Kirsten Justesen herself) curled up in the same box. The woman is hiding in the plinth and actively concealing herself from our gaze: a model refusing to be modelled.

In works such as this, Justesen was entering in dialogue and negotiation not only with the classical concept of sculpture, but also with the history of art, in which for centuries woman has been shaped by and for a male gaze.
 
Groundbreaking body art
This exhibition is dedicated to the work of an artist who raised the bar in terms of artistic creation and expanded the opportunities for women artists to express themselves.

In Justesen’s works, the body serves as a mutable sculpture that is open to new meanings and contexts. Critically, yet humorously, Justesen presents woman as an active individual in confident dialogue with the world around her. This is evident, for example, in Circumstances, a series of works based on the artist’s own pregnancy. Her pregnancy intensified her understanding of the body as a sculpture in itself and all the implicit societal and gender issues. As a result, even on an international level, Kirsten Justesen is regarded as a pioneer in the fields of feminist avant-garde and contemporary art.
 
“Kirsten Justesen is an icon in Danish contemporary art, and her work is a vital cornerstone of Kunsten’s collection. Justesen’s works compel us to think about how we see: not just what we see. We are proud we can present this exhibition. Its overview of her six decades of work underlines Justesen’s artistic contribution as a feminist pioneer and - more than anything else - a sculptor,” says Caroline Nymark Zachariassen, curator and Head of Collection at Kunsten.

Pussy Power pays tribute to Kirsten Justesen’s primal strength and courage, which continue to be necessary and relevant.
 
The exhibition is curated by Anna Holm, curator and project researcher.

The exhibition is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation and Grosserer L. F. Foghts Fond

Read more on www.kunsten.dk/en/pussypower

Press kit.

Photo: Kirsten Justesen, Pussy Power (ed. of 25) 1969-71/2000. Archival print on Somerset cotton paper.