Isn’t it Nice to Feel Feminine Again?
by Juliet Cutler
I look for myself in museums.
Oh, there I am. That could be me running alongside Guido van der Werve in Nummer veertien, home, a film about Van der Werve’s journey running, biking, and swimming nearly 1,200 miles from Warsaw to Paris. I recognize myself in his desire to fully experience the beauty and pain of human existence.
There I am again, in that painting. I could be walking among those lonesome, blue sailboats under Max Pechstein’s crimson sunset sky.
Just there, in those Art Deco posters, I would love to get all dolled up in my flapper dress, a long feather in my cloche hat, and take a ride on the Nord Express.
Isn’t that why people go to museums? To understand themselves and the world in which they live, to gain new perspectives, to see beauty, to experience insight, to learn.
That’s why I go to museums. I see myself in them, and I am often transformed by what I see.
***
I guess that’s why I left the Stedelijk Museum feeling so melancholy. I know that humanity can be base, rude, even nefarious. I’ve seen the reprehensible. I know the horrors. I’ve howled and screamed in the darkness, “This isn’t real. I want to wake up.”
“I saw you do it.”
“This hurts. Stop it.”
But, really, what is the point of all the terror revealed? What are we to do with the visions of Mike Kelley?
A hall—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple . . .
Faces—only men, only white
Words—desire, pleasure, rape, chaos—only men
Money—Pay for your Pleasure, give money for the victims—only women.
I am angry. Where am I? Where are my words? How am I seen?
Maybe like the women upstairs, sitting below the frogs, legs splayed wide, lips parted, all vaginas and nipples?
Always the object.
Never the subject.
***
A promotional poster catches my eye just outside the permanent collection. It reads, “Stedelijk Museum: Maris, Breitner, Jongkind, Lautrec, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Chagall, Picasso, Mondriaan, Klee, and Sluyters.”
So, these are the noteworthy subjects of the Stedelijk Museum—eleven men.
I can find over 30 works of art where women are the objects. Most of these works are by men.
In 10,000 square metres (98,400 square feet), I can find only ten among hundreds—Jo Baer, Isa Genzken, Hanne Darboven, Rineke Dijkstra, Marlene Dumas, Yayoi Kusama, Paulina Olowska, Jackie Winsor, Martha Rosler, and Maria Hees.
These are the women of the Stedelijk Museum. Like colourful balloons in a quiet corner, where the crowds are a bit thinner, you can seek them out. Maybe there you’ll find a glimpse of hope amidst the pervasive moans of Mike Kelley? Maybe there you’ll find something transcendent, progressive, and truly contemporary?