KIRSTEN JUSTESEN AT NORDJYLLANDS KUNSTMUSEUM,
MUSEUM OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART, AALBORG, DENMARK

This catalogue is about works exhibited at Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum in the spring of 1999. The theme of the exhibition is Kirsten Justesen’s photographic works, in the widest possible sense. There are sculptures involving photographic images. There are photostats; and wherever possible, the works appear with a new digital skin/surfaee in 1:1/ one-woman size. There is a mural with 9051 photographic notes Kirsten Justesen‘s sketching pad.
A number of people and institutions have offered help and assistance in the making of these works, and we would like to express out heartfelt gratitude by saying thank you: first of all to Nordcolor, Aalborg, for making possible and helping the recreation of a series of works from the 1960s to the very latest. Lotus Foto ApS, Frederiksberg; COPY RIGHT and Christopher Hauch, as well as the National Workshops for Arts and Crafts are all thanked for kind assistance.
The catalogue itself, published in conjunction with the book KORS DRAG by Brøndums Forlag, was created in collaboration with Asger Uhd Jepsen; thanks are extended to hirn for generous and good co-operation on the making of the two books. Thank you also to the many writers who have contributed their personal and surprising angles on Kirsten Justesens work to this catalogue. Last, but not least, thank you to Kirsten Justesen herself for enjoyable and inspiring co-operation.
Nina Hobolth, February 1999

INTRODUCTION  SCULPTURE  AND  PHOTOGRAPHY
The exhibition of Kirsten Justesen‘s art from the end of the 1 960s up till now has been composed within a frame: photographic works. It must be immediately stressed that Kirsten Justesen does not see herself as a photographer, - and nor, for that matter, does the art scene around her. She was trained as a sculptor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and her self-image as an artist - as well as her production - is a direct extension of this. However, like so many other artists of her generation, Kirsten Justesen incorporated photography in her work, - and ‘work‘, what was that? This brings us to the question of the artistic work process and the work-character‘ that have been Kirsten Justesen‘s vehicle for expression through more than 30 years.
The earliest works included at the exhibition at Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum, are SCULPTURE 1 & SCULPTURE II, both from 1968. This 5 the very year which is remembered for the Paris youth revolt, and Denmark also saw turbulence at the institutes of education, including among other things ‘Student occupation‘ of the institutes at universities and the ideological confrontations this engendered. At the Academy of Fine Arts, students had a desire to redefine the expressions of art, incorporating new techniques and new planes of experience. However, Kirsten Justesen did not get her ‘greb“ from the Academy of Fine Arts; that came from meeting with Situationists in Odense in 1960 and through he participation in Ung Kunst (‘Young Art‘) in Aarhus 1965-68. At the same time she studied the craft of sculpting with Knud Nellemose at The Academy of Fine Arts, Jylland — eight hours every day!
The conceptions of what art could be - and could be used for - were continuously examined during the first years at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in collaborations with KANONKLUBBEN (the Cannon Club — after the super-8 camera).
Photography became an indispensable tool, - and Kirsten Justesen linked sculptural expression, her own body, and photography in the two SCULPTURE works. At one and the same time they contain the three-dimensional, the identifiable and the photographic-anonymous. SCULPTURE 1 seems to be mirror images and reflections of the observer in relation to space and movement. SCULPTURE II is perceived - well, as box-sculpture, containing - not a person, but a photograph of a person, - not in movement, but in a claustrophobic space. These two works underscore the truth of Kirsten Justesen‘s self-image as a sculptor, working to explore the three-dimensional.
One of the most insightful books on photography as a new artistic media was published in the early 70s: Susan Sontag‘s On Photography. Naturally, Sontag is mainly concerned with the American art scene, and the recurrent pivotal point to her is the place of photography in relation to painting, - to the picture. She is not concerned with photography in relation to the sculptural, - in relation to movement and space. yes, hut not to sculpture. And yet she clearly sums up what the age perceived as essential ta photography versus pictorial art: On Photography“ p. 149: “The traditional fine arts are elitist: their characteristic form is a single work, produced by an individual; they imply a hierarchy of subject matter in which same subjects are considered important, profound, noble, and others unimportant, trivial, base. The media are democratic: they weaken the role of the specialised producer or auteur (by using procedures based on chance, or mechanical techniques which anyone can learn; and by being corporate or collaborative efforts); they regard the whale world as material. The traditional fine arts rely an the distinction between authentic and fake, between Original and copy, between good taste and bad taste; the media blur, if they do not abolish outright, these distinctions. The fine arts assume that certain experiences or subjects have a meaning. The media are essentially contentless (this is the truth behind Marshall McLuhans celebrated remark about the message being the medium itself); their characteristic tone is ironic, or deadpan, or parodistic. It is inevitable that more and more art will be designed to end as photographs. A modernist would have to rewrite Paters dictum that all aspires to the condition of music. Now all art aspires to the condition of photography.
SCULPTURE 1 & SCULPTURE II carry the classical tradition of sculpture as well as the turbulent expressions of their age within them; both works reflect themselves and are reflective. With this duality, as sculptures and photagraphs, they bridge the gap between classical art tradition and the media-consciousness of a new era.

Note
GREB‘ is a particular term used by Kirsten Justesen and many others on the Danish art scene. lt cannot be directly translated, hut is explained by Kirsten Justesen herself in the following terms: In my work, I am concerned with my greb - my grip or handle an the situation. This word is not the same in English, as it is not a grasp or something you capture - as this implies you run after something. it is not an object. nor is it the context in which you work. This greb is not something you place an things or a context, it is more the result of a dialogue with the context, and that context could be many things: the circumstances, the size of a space, the various reasons why you decide 10 accept an invitation or work to create a situation, with money, without money. This is how you develop a score. From Katy Deepwells interview with Kirsten Justesen, n. paradoxa, vol. 3,1999, Body, Space and Memory. 

THE WOMEN‘S STRUGGLE AND THE SOCIAL DIMENSION
At present (1999) we are concerned with the breakdown of values, with society’s disgust with politicians, and with the lack of individual commitment to democratic processes (to cut a long story short!) Scarcely 30 years ago, Danish social debate sounded a different note. Among other things, there was class struggle, women’s struggle, and cultural struggle. Billedet som kampmiddel (The Image as Weapon) was the title of a book, published by Farlaget Information, about Images of Women between 1968 and 1977. The books preface, which expresses the joint view of the contributing artists, art historians, writers, and librarians, says: We see images as points in an ongoing process, as something mobile, which is not completed or finished as a final Work 01 Art. We will fight for those images linked 10 our work -10 our children - with other peoples problems, work, and children - the surrounding world. The image should be a wedge that is constantly rammed in between conventions, bureaucracy, and social order, so that any relationship between established rules and people is always criticised in as manifold ways as possible, also in a socialist system, which we believe is the only dignified system 10 live, work, and make lave. Kirsten Justesens pictures frm the 70s meet the above requirements with astonishing precision. Perhaps because she never resorts to sexual-political postulates without couching them with artistic form, personally experienced precision and a graspable point. Once again the three axes are maintained: Space, the moment, and the individual. And the medium of photography is completely unsurpassed in its ability 10 create atmosphere across isms. 01 course there are references to the family idylls of the Danish Golden age and bourgeois complacency in a picture like The Class Struggle from 1976. There is also a confrontation with the many representations made by male artists of their wives at home, reading their newspapers (eg. L.A. Ring‘s painting of his wife Sigrid, who is reading the morning paper in a room filled with light, without any impositions from children or everyday life with cleaning and cooking). The prevalent atmosphere of disorder and chaos, with the housewife - clad in slippers and housecoat, curlers in her hair - deep in reading (a serious paper, not a magazine) is a counter-image to the bourgeois family patriarchy, which was considered truth and reality incarnate as late as in the 70s. All domestic duties have been thrown overboard: the children are playing with sharp knives, reading (as in: self-development) is given priority over domestic duties and presentable appearances. it is, of course, Kirsten Justesen herself posing in this claustrophobic space, where the only, yet obvious, reference to her work as an artist is the headless male sculpture glimpsed in the left-hand side of the picture.
Facing taboos and the loss of freedom is one of Kirsten Justesen‘s hallmarks during these years, where childcare and domestic duties limit the scope for expression - or do they? For indeed artistic counter-images to this alleged loss of  Freedom are created ! Just look at Lunch from 1975, a housewife‘s dreams of freedom come true, out into the landscape, carried not by wings, but by a shopping trolley. What a counter-Image to Duane Hanson‘s American housewife, shopping, weighed down by shopping already consumed and shopping yet to come. And there are the rough pictures from the prairie, where we do not see the Indians capturing and tying up the white settlers; rather, innocent children are tied against trees, while mum is - where could she be?
The attributes of everyday life become an aesthetic; the private is made public. Kirsten Justesen‘s studio is situated between nursery and kitchen; her work is a feminist aesthetic greb, never private. A ‘counter-image‘ is created in the series BY GLIMPSES - We Give Strength to Each Other, where - in Kirsten Justesen‘s own words — new heroines emerge to serve as role models, giving new strength.
Series by male artists from this period are different, concerned with the role of the artist. with posing and self-observation. For instance, Bruce Nauman‘s facial contortions and bodily gesticulation, Gilbert & George‘s staged posing, and William Wegman‘s manipulated portraits are kept within a far more narrow photographic sphere, where social commitment and irony is not present.
But what was felt to be strong, contemporary images in the women‘s struggle in the 70s was replaced by other modes of expression and currents in the 80s. The series of images created by Kirsten Justesen in the 70s were shown at countless exhibitions, as posters, in women‘s magazines, and in art literature throughout the decade. With their photographic accuracy, their humour stamped by slogans, and their open statements they remain unforgettable icons of a decade, which was otherwise very offen infused with implacable orthodoxy and self-righteousness.

BODY, SEXUALITY, AND THE SOURCE OF ALL THINGS
1 use my own body. it can be undressed, dressed, cast, photographed, draw. It gets pregnant, older, thinner, and fatter. It is always at hand“, wrote Kirsten Justesen in the late 70s, and it was her own body which was at hand when she arrived in Green-Land in 1980 and started new series of photos, […]

Kirsten Justesen: RE KOLLEKTION.