Kirsten Justesen – Pussy Power

Though she studied classic sculpture in a traditional art academy, she is particularly well known for her performative, body- and time-based sculpture, regularly using her own body as a medium.

Kirsten Justesen continues be one of the key figures of feminism, tackling stereotypical perceptions of gender and shedding light on the unconscious and structurally determined constraints to which women are subject.

The exhibition pays tribute to Kirsten Justesen’s primal strength and courage, which continue to be necessary and relevant.

Three cheers for Kirsten! Three cheers for Pussy Power!

About the artist

Kirsten Justesen was born in 1943. At the age of 16, she started an apprenticeship at an advertising agency in Odense, which she completed in 1964. She studied sculpture at the Jutland Art Academy in Aarhus from 1965 to 1967, and in 1967 was a member of the board for Young Art in Aarhus. She went on to study at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1967 to 1975. Here she was part of an experimental group of students known as ‘Kanonklubben’ (The Cannon Club). From 1970 she was an active Women’s Libber in Denmark.

From the late 1960s, Kirsten Justesen’s work could be classified as ‘Body Art’ and ‘Intermedia Art’, in which she used her own body as material in the context of sculpture, photography, installation etc. Since the 1990s, Justesen’s works have enjoyed a special place in Kunsten’s collection. Her works also figure in other collections, including those of Randers Art Museum, Horsens Art Museum, the National Gallery of Denmark, MAN Museum Anna Nordlander, Skellefteå, Sweden, Sammlung Verbund, Wien, Austria, and The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC, US. Her work has also been featured in exhibitions over the world.

^{Kirsten Justesen – Skulptur II (1968)}

Explore more art from Kirsten Justesen at collection.kunsten.dk