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Bas Jan Ader

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Laure Prouvost

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Jenny Holzer

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Rodins Hands

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-              Identity

-              The self

-              Mental health

-              The human brain

-              Emotion

-              Expression

-              Expression of emotion without the face

-              Losing oneself

-              Connection

-              Autism and neurodivergence

-              (Given) Roles

-              Socialization

-              Personality

-              Transition

-              Psychology

-              Soul being

-              Sensory/ texture

-              Contrast

-              Bright or dark

-              Different parts of the self depicted in art

-              Collage

-              Closeup

-              Fetishized

-              Disturbing

-              Healing

-              Trauma

-              Physical

-              Personal

-              Intimate

-              Sexual/ sexualization

-              Gender

-              Tension

-              Being human or not feeling human/ what makes us human

-              Asking questions to myself

-              Scattered

-              reflecting

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-              The relation between body and identity (Butler)

-              Artists/photographers dealing with this topic in their work

-              Your own experiences with regard to this topic

-              Your work in relation to this context

-              And you could go into decent empathy

-              Identity and Neurodiversity

-              Decent Empathy (vs Compassion, Rudger Bregman)

-              Own Definition of decent empathy

-              Narcissism?

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-              What is identity

-              Influence on identity by physical appearance, being a woman, being neurodivergent and sexuality

-              What is the importance of genetics for identity?

-              Is identity the same as personality?

-              What is the interplay between genetics, caregiver and social environment to develop certain attributes as a person?

-              What does losing oneself mean?

-              What is consciousness and is identity linked to it?

-              Is identity physically visual?

-              If chemicals balance our brain do we really have free will?

-              What types of identity are there (sexual, work, etc.)?

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-              Francesca Woodman

-              Frida Kahlo

-              Nan Goldin

-              Judith Butler

-              Carolee Schneemann

-              Hannah Wilke

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Search Engines

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Documentary

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De Sekszusjes gaan op zomertoer

Raven in Renesse

Wordt er in Renesse net zoveel gedronken, gefeest én gesekst als voor corona?

Frije seks yn Fryslân

De Sekszusjes gaan Friesland in met de vraag: Is dizze nije dei in bytsje in geile dei?

Aanduwen in Drenthe

Wat doe je als je in Drenthe bent? Brommers kiek'n natuurlijk.

Genoeg gevoosd in Zuidoost

Soms vind je de mooiste verhalen gewoon om de hoek. Dat blijkt maar weer in Amsterdam-Zuidoost.

Pik piemel lul

De Sekszusjes gaan de straat op met nagekleide piemels en vragen aan jongens waar ze zich druk over maken.

Getver schaamhaar

De Sekszusjes onderzoeken waarom ze hun schaamhaar op een bepaalde manier dragen.

Spijt van seks

Seks is leuk, maar soms ook kut. De zusjes vragen op straat of mensen rotsituaties tijdens de seks hebben meegemaakt.

Allemaal anaal

Krista houdt van anale seks, maar Marcelle snapt daar niks van. Ze heeft het gevoel dat iedereen het doet, mist ze dan iets?

Vingeraars en rukkers

We masturberen bijna allemaal. Toch praten we er nauwelijks over en schamen we ons vaak.

Blij met je kutje

De zusjes Krista en Marcelle onderzoeken de verschillende manieren waarop een vagina eruit kan zien.

Au schatje

Marcelle heeft tijdens de seks nog nooit aangegeven wanneer ze iets niet lekker vindt. Daar moet verandering in komen.

Slikken kreng

De Sekszusjes denken al jaren dat sperma slikken erbij hoort en dat dit van hen verwacht wordt. Maar is dat wel zo?

Misverstandjes

Moet je zoveel mogelijk verschillende en wilde standjes doen om spannende seks te hebben?

PorNO or YES?

Bijna iedereen lijkt porno te kijken, maar toch houd je het vaak voor jezelf.

Voorspel

eindredacteur Ruby Deelen over het maken van Sekszusjes TV

Vieze film

Drie filmmakers zich regisseren voor het eerst in hun carrière een pornofilm.

Tent en seks

Hoe seksueel bevrijd zijn we eigenlijk?

Sex? Yes Please!

Wordt de seksuele moraal steeds preutser onder jongeren?

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De Sekszusjes gaan op zomertoer Raven in Renesse Wordt er in Renesse net zoveel gedronken, gefeest én gesekst als voor corona? Frije seks yn Fryslân De Sekszusjes gaan Friesland in met de vraag: Is dizze nije dei in bytsje in geile dei? Aanduwen in Drenthe Wat doe je als je in Drenthe bent?

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The Representation of the Female Body in the Feminist Art as the Body Politics

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The Representation of the Female Body in the Feminist Art as the Body Politics

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The article presents an overview of the feminist theory on the female body and its representation in the Western culture. Moreover, it examines the examples of feminist works of art that pertain to the female body and issues concerning the

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Artists who use their research to identity

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Mirror Piece 1

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Judith Butler: Your Behavior Creates Your Gender | Big Think

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It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler, both for intellectuals and for queer communities. There are scholarly books, university courses, fan clubs, social media pages and comics dedicated to Butler's thinking.

They (Butler's preferred pronoun) did not single-handedly invent queer theory and today's proliferation of gender identities, but their work is often credited with helping to make these developments possible.

In turn, political movements have often inspired Butler's work. Butler served on the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, spoke at the Occupy Wall Street protests, has defended Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns, and famously declined a Civil Courage Award in Berlin because of racist comments made by the organisers.

This has at times led to controversy. Some right-wing movements and religious figures who are attached to conservative gender roles have seen Butler as a threat to society. This is ironic, given Butler's work has always maintained a commitment to justice, equality and non-violence.

Gender performativity

The most influential concept in Butler's work is "gender performativity". This theory has been refined across Butler's work over several decades, but it is addressed most directly in Gender Trouble (1990), Bodies That Matter (1993) and Undoing Gender (2004).

In these works, Butler sets out to challenge "essentialist" understandings of gender: in other words, assumptions that masculinity and femininity are naturally or biologically given, that masculinity should be performed by male bodies and femininity by female bodies, and that these bodies naturally desire their "opposite".

Living in gay and lesbian communities, Butler had seen how even in feminist circles, these assumptions often resulted in unliveable lives for those who did not follow gendered expectations.

Butler therefore set out to challenge the way descriptions of current ways of performing masculinity and femininity are usually also taken to be values about the right way to do gender. Butler uses the concept of gender "norms" to describe this confusion of what "is" with what "should be", a confusion that prevents us seeing other possible ways of life as legitimate, or even imagining such possibilities at all.

Instead, Butler proposes that gender is not biological, but "performative". The term "performativity" does not simply mean performance. We can think of it in terms of the linguist J.L. Austin's concept of the "performative utterance", which refers to a statement that brings about that which it states. The classic example is "I now pronounce you man and wife". Spoken by a person socially approved to do so, these words create a married couple.

Butler argues that gender works in this way: when we name a child as "girl" or "boy", we participate in creating them as that very thing. By speaking of people (or ourselves) as "man" or "woman", we are in the process creating and defining those categories.

Some gender theory distinguishes between biological "sex" and social "gender", but Butler finds this counterproductive. For Butler, it makes no sense to talk about biological "sex" existing outside of its social meanings. If there is such a thing, we can't encounter it, because we are born into a world that already has a particular understanding of gender, and that world then retrospectively tells us the meaning of our anatomy. We can't know ourselves outside of those social meanings. In fact, much of Butler's work reminds us we cannot fully know ourselves at all.

At this point, Butler is often accused of thinking gender is entirely caused by language and has nothing to do with bodies, or that we can simply decide what gender to be when we wake up in the morning.

But this is not what they mean. Butler argues that we reproduce gender not only through repeated ways of speaking, but also of doing. We dress in certain ways, do certain exercises at the gym, use particular body language, visit particular kinds of medical specialists, and so on. Through such repetitions, gender is reinforced, layer by layer, until it seems inescapable.

However, this work of creating and redefining gender is never finished - for gender norms to hold, they must be constantly repeated. This means in the longer term, gender norms are intrinsically open to change. We can never get them exactly "right", and if we stop doing them, or do them differently, we participate in changing their meaning. This opens up possibilities for gender to change.

These are not easy ways to think, because they challenge some of our most familiar assumptions about what a person is, what gender is, and how language works. This is one reason why Butler's writing has been notorious for being "difficult". But the popularity of their work shows there are many people who feel their lives are not adequately described by "common sense" ways of thinking.

Read more: Explainer: what does it mean to be 'cisgender'?

Grievable life, vulnerability and non-violence

Over the past 20 years, Butler's writing has expanded beyond gender into other areas of political exclusion and oppression. An underlying theme across much of this more recent work is a concern about the ways some people are discounted as "human".

Butler summarises this through the concept of "grievable life", which draws attention to the ways in which some lives are not publicly mourned, because they were never publicly acknowledged as being properly alive in the first place. For example, Butler points out that AIDS victims rarely receive obituaries in mainstream US newspapers, nor do prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, Black people killed by US police, or refugees and stateless people who die crossing borders.

These populations can be abandoned to unliveable, precarious lives and unnoticed deaths without any serious public accountability. In our contemporary globalised, neoliberal world, more and more people are living in such situations, without adequate social support, health care, sustainable environments or access to the public sphere. Butler calls this situation "precarity".

Often this exclusion is justified through "frames of war", which position certain groups of people as threats to "security". To defend this security, it is tempting to violently impose precarity on others, as the US administration did after 9/11 in the "war on terror".

To counter such frames of war, Butler proposes an ethics of non-violence, based on the understanding that we become ourselves only in relation to others. This means that no life is fully secure, self-contained or independent. We cannot choose who shares the planet with us, and they can always hurt us. Ultimately, if we are to survive together, we must learn to acknowledge and live with mutual vulnerability, as challenging as that may be.

This may sound idealistic, but it is not an ethics that assumes people are "nice". It starts from the proposition that they are not. Performing non-violence will always be ambivalent and difficult, especially in a violent world. But it is in our own interests to realise that our own capacity to live a "liveable life" depends on life-sustaining conditions that also allow others (human and non-human) to live.

Butler finds performative enactments of this approach in some collective protests, such as the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York and the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Turkey, in which people from different backgrounds gathered to call for a more just and equitable world.

Butler reminds us that vulnerability is not all bad; it is what makes life possible. All bodies must be in some way open to the world and to others. They must be able to take in and give out: to eat, breathe, speak, be intimate. A body unable to do this could not be alive. Ultimately, Butler reminds us, often poetically, that to be fully ourselves, we need each other.

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Judith Butler: their philosophy of gender explained

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It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler, both for intellectuals and for queer communities. There are scholarly books, university courses, fan clubs, social media pages and comics dedicated to Butler's thinking.

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Judith Butler's Theory of Gender Performativity, Explained

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Art and Feminism [Reckitt, Helena, Phelan, Peggy] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Art and Feminism

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The artist’s body : Warr, Tracey: Amazon.nl: Books

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When Lauren Elkin began work on this book, she believed its subject was monstrosity and female creativity, her spur a now much-quoted line from Jenny Offill's 2014 novel Dept of Speculation: "My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead." Naturally, Elkin hardly needed to be told that such a monster is almost inevitably male: a beast who relies on women for all the mundane things in life (the cooking, the washing, the regular praise due to an undoubted genius). Female art monsters are thin on the ground because to become one means choosing work over motherhood.

But it wasn't only such unfairness that interested her. The more she thought about it, the more she saw that while it is still agonisingly difficult for a woman to allow herself to be monstrous - how we fear baring our teeth - it's also terrifyingly easy inadvertently to become so, at least in the eyes of others. Behaviour that is perfectly acceptable in a man - determination, rage, ambition - is all too often seen as ugly and unwarranted in a woman.

Somewhere along the way, however, Elkin's plan changed. She stuck with her title, but her book is not, after all, about these tensions. Converting a masculine figure (the art monster) into a female one, she tells us, strands women on the side of the second sex, making work only in reaction to the patriarchy. Monstrosity is "a trap" even if we revel in it; the female monster is Other in a way the male monster is not. Instead, she has written about a variety of female artists who placed the body at the centre of their practice; who made a language of the body, and by doing so defined their own aesthetic aims. Elkin's book asks - and here I begin to struggle to summarise it - whether women should prioritise feeling over thought; it looks at how they might literally take up more space in the world; and it celebrates the "joy" to be found in the "meat" of our flesh, our unruly female bodies.

Imagine a crocodile of children led by a teacher (Elkin) who loves each one of them just a little too much

How did she put it together? Obviously, she did a lot of reading and gallery-going. But its composition, ultimately, had to do with "vibrations". Written in a "hyper alert state of linking and connecting", any consequent disorganisation is, she insists, deliberate: "For me this book is an experiment in critical form as much as it is a feminist intervention... I needed to follow the line of thought as it developed; I couldn't impose a primary argument followed with supporting chapters."

I think there are times when it's profitable for a writer to freestyle a bit: to show their workings, all those sudden unnerving blots and semi-revelations. But in the case of Art Monsters, I'm afraid there is no getting away from the fact that the result is desperately contingent. However hyper-alert Elkin was as she wrote - and she is a very good writer, one whose last two books, and No 91/92, I loved to bits - the connections she makes are sometimes so loose as to be invisible. Imagine a crocodile of children led by a teacher (Elkin) who loves each one of them just a little too much. Try as she might to encourage them to hold hands, some are resistant; they go their own way, and quite rightly, too, for they belong elsewhere. What I'm trying to say is that this book might have worked better reframed as a collection of essays.

'An experiment in critical form': Lauren Elkin. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

Still, it's nothing if not capacious. Here is Virginia Woolf, lying in a bath where she is dreaming up a book about the sexual life of women, and here is Laura Knight, painting a female nude whose buttocks look for all the world as if they've just been spanked.Elkin writes about the photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron, and of the slashing of Velázquez's The Rokeby Venus by the suffragette Mary Richardson; she tells us, too, about Fanny Burney's mastectomy, an operation, the novelist describes in a letter of 1812, performed without anaesthetic. But while all these women are, individually, perfectly interesting, I cannot string them together for you, like beads; the only real connection I could see between them as I was reading was the fact that they were female, and in possession of such things as breasts and vaginas (though, as Elkin makes plain when she writes about the American artist Hannah Wilke, who made little vulvas out of chewing gum and stuck them all over her face, she thinks the "association of genitalia with gender" is terribly démodé - a statement I found confusing in the context of her book).

The presiding spirits of Art Monsters, though, are less well-known than the above. Elkin admires the writer Kathy Acker, and what she calls her "philosophy in the first person", and she has a passion for the sculpture objects of the German-born American artist Eva Hesse. Above all, she's a fan of the performance artist Carolee Schneemann, who in 1975 famously drew a roll of paper from her vagina, on which she'd written a (female) critic's criticism of her work.

I did wonder at Elkin's reverence for Schneemann, which seemed disproportionate to me (when she is good..., etc). But it wasn't until I considered another section of the book, in which she writes about the (white) American painter Dana Schutz, and the controversy that blew up when her painting of the corpse of Emmett Till was exhibited at the Whitney Biennial in 2017, that I began to wonder about Art Monster 's parameters all over again. If it's hard to understand why Schutz appears in the book at all - she is not, so far as I'm aware, an explicitly feminist artist, and her subject is not the body - I was even more puzzled by Elkin's vociferous condemnation of what she regards as Schutz's cultural appropriation.

It's not necessarily that I disagree with Elkin on this. It's more a question of double standards. Aren't artists allowed, sometimes, to make mistakes? And isn't it the case that female artists are more likely to be punished when they do? I thought of the Barbican's Schneemann retrospective last year, where I saw the cheap and utterly gratuitous Terminal Velocity (2001-05), in which outsize images of bodies falling from the twin towers on 9/11 are used to no good purpose. Elkin doesn't mention this piece, but to me it's a good example of the kind of connections she fails to make in her book; a vibration whose tremors here go unfelt.

Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art by Lauren Elkin is published by Chatto & Windus (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art by Lauren Elkin review - when freestyle thinking goes too far

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Elkin's capacious survey of female artists who focused on the body might have worked better as a collection of essays

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Rutger Bregman’s Humankind - A hopeful history

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Frans de Waal: Great Apes and the Gift of Empathy | Monologue | Topic

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ralphmayr.com :: Die Qualen des Narzissmus

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In Die Qualen des Narzissmus, philosopher and publicist Isolde Charim approaches a fundamental question of human psychology from a somewhat unexpected angle: Why do we—that is, most of us, most of the time—voluntarily comply with rules, regulations, and norms? The popular “carrots and sticks” theory with its roots in the behaviorism of the 1970s and its culmination in the homo oeconomicus model clearly falls short of sufficiently explaining the vastness of human complexity. Mechanisms such as a fear of violent punishment, incarceration, or social stigmatization do play a role, undoubtedly. But Charim sets out to provide a deeper, multi-faceted answer. Namely one that’s based on the idea of a “sophisticated” narcissism and its interplay with society.

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The literature on narcissism has exploded – MODERN TIMES

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ESSAY: In 2021, there were 1000 publications on narcissism. Narcissism describes a new social normality. This ‘self-realization ideology’ has now ended up in selfishness and neoliberalism. But what can account for different degrees of narcissism – is it innate character traits, socialization or cultural background?

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Dear Katharina,

You can use google scholar and the search engine of the Minerva library.

If you search within these search engines on the basis of your keywords you might find interesting sources.

You can find more search engines under the following link:

https://padlet.com/Silex/sources-search-engines-and-social-networks-for-research-mwhkztl0i93t4tgz

We talked about different things. Especially the relation between the body and identity was an important aspect. I think that the work of Judith Butler might be interesting concerning this relation. Also, I was thinking of the work of Isolde Charim concerning Narcism, if you find this still an interesting topic.

https://en.nytid.no/litteraturen-om-narsissisme-har-eksplodert/

https://ralphmayr.com/library/die-qualen-des-narzissmus/

I also included a link to the topic of neurodiversity. It discusses how we become more aware that we constructed the world from a dominant, specific neurological view. For a long time, we considered this view the ‘natural’ view. However, it is one of the views by which we can perceive and experience the world, and of course, everyone has a different personality.

We also talked about the importance of decent empathy. Probably the thesis can also touch on the research of empathy. Think for instance of the empathy society (see links) and the work of the Dutch Historian who pleads for compassion instead of empathy. He sees empathy as something dangerous. But maybe you can find your definition of decent empathy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTw_3LmQlkU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g

https://www.innatenonviolence.org/readings/2020_07.shtml

You could also look at female artists who use their bodies as research to identity, especially those who use photography.

https://pure.eur.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/122258460/10.4324_9781003036432-11_chapter.pdf

Check out artists like:

Carolee Schneeman

Hannah Wilke

Check out this article:

https://www.academia.edu/25263861/The_Representation_of_the_Female_Body_in_the_Feminist_Art_as_the_Body_Politics

Maybe your thesis could touch upon subjects like:

-The relation between body and identity (Butler)

-Artists/photographers dealing with this topic in their work

- Your own experiences with regard to this topic

- Your work in relation to this context

- And you could go into decent empathy

This is the documentary I was talking about:

https://www.vpro.nl/programmas/sekszusjes-tv.html

Also check:

These book are in the Library:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/09/art-monsters-unruly-bodies-in-feminist-art-by-lauren-elkin-review-when-freestyle-thinking-goes-too-far

https://www.amazon.nl/-/en/Tracey-Warr/dp/0714847011

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Feminism-Helena-Reckitt/dp/0714835293

Butler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XFg8f1STLk

https://theconversation.com/judith-butler-their-philosophy-of-gender-explained-192166

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo7o2LYATDc&t=8s

Best regards,

Hille

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Figuren die das Leben schreibt

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Aby's ghost said to me Look. Cast your gaze over the surfaces and into the interstices to see the complexity. Aby, who called his science of survival "the iconology of intervals", advocated reading in-between the images, in other words between times, so as to gain access to knowledge not taught in history books. In the territory we are about to enter, the eye will have to venture into the holes and bowels of the material to manage "to read what was never written" . There / in the chasms / what has already happened mirrors what is about to happen. There / we can see that the present is made up of multiple pasts. And that "in the past lies our entire future".

Selen Ansen in a text about the work of Anne Wenzel

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"And so they are ever returning to us, the dead. This, then, is how ephemeral acts manage to live on after their own disappearance. They return by means of surfaces that record the traces of the impact of gestures / through matter that sediments what bodies forget."

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They started out in Ukraine, established a thriving headquarters in Paris and last year succeeded in ambushing a startled Vladimir Putin during a visit to a German trade fair. Now the controversial activists of Femen, notorious for their topless protests on issues such as prostitution, abortion and the wearing of the hijab, are planning to target Britain.

In London to promote a documentary on the group's activities, founder member and spokesperson Alexandra Shevchenko said Femen UK would focus on issues such as female genital mutilation (FGM), forced marriage and the sex industry. "No one is talking about FGM in England," she said. "People assume it is too violent and extreme to exist here, that it only happens in Africa and the Middle East, but the UK has some of the highest levels in the west."

The setting up of a new British arm of Femen's operations is likely to generate mixed feelings among indigenous feminist groups. A succession of high-profile topless protests since the group's formation in 2009 was greeted with bafflement and amusement by many observers, although given the heavy-handed treatment often meted out by bodyguards and police there is no doubting its members' courage.

According to the 25-year-old Shevchenko, Femen has no formal leadership, but hopes to establish a "homegrown" UK branch, built up from a base of British feminist activists, with whom she is in discussions this weekend.

Many Femen members have been exiled from Ukraine. From their base in Paris, where they made headlines recently by invading the catwalk at Paris fashion week, they hope to visit London to help train recruits for membership, which is about more than signing a form.

"Becoming a member of Femen takes more than just a few days," said Shevchenko. "You must be physically and psychologically prepared. Of course, you have to support our ideology as a starting point, but it is also a question of being fit in your body and mind to fight - to be arrested, struggle with police and jump fences. Our main enemy is patriarchy and its three manifestations - dictatorship, religion and the sex industry. These issues are universal."

Shevchenko attributes Femen's success in France, where it has its largest membership, to the long francophone tradition of protest and organised resistance. Can the same rebellious potential be tapped this side of the Channel?

"Britain is separate from the rest of the European Union and has its own social and historical character," said Shevchenko. "Unlike in Ukraine, there has already been a sexual revolution here and people know what feminism is. But I don't think our campaigns will be very different. Femen UK will be about action. Of course, there is no obvious dictatorship here, but rightwing extremists are on the rise in the form of nationalism all over Europe. Likewise, we have the conservative influence of Christianity and Islamism, and of course the sex industry is everywhere."

In the summer of 2012, the group staged a protest at London's City Hall against the participation of Islamist regimes in the Olympic Games, before being apprehended by police.

"Of course, it is not the Ukraine or Russia - the secret service will not try to kill you here," she said. "But there is not a big difference ultimately, because if you are trying to do sextremist actions that target important people, you will be arrested, recorded, tracked and banned from future protests."

Femen's campaigns against Islamism have incited hostility from Muslim and non-Muslim women, alongside charges of xenophobia and cultural imperialism.

Femen UK would, according to Shevchenko, be an addition to, not a substitute for, other forms of feminist campaigning in Britain. She claimed that there is an appetite among young women all over Europe for a new, more dynamic form of resistance.

"There is real feminist pride in the UK, which is why Femen appeals to women. But many are becoming disappointed with classical feminism, which is like library feminism," she said. "Of course, we still need those who make theory, but feminism should be like an army, with different departments. Femen is like the commanders taking the frontline to remove the mask and show the ugly sexist face of society."

The UK premiere of an acclaimed documentary entitled Ukraine is Not a Brothel, by Australian director Kitty Green, was screened as part of the 2013 BFI film festival. The film made international headlines in September following its world premiere at the Venice film festival, where it revealed the role of a Ukrainian man, Victor Svyatski, as the alleged leader of Femen.
Topics

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Fearless ... and topless: Femen activists to bring 'sextremism' to the UK

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They started out in Ukraine, established a thriving headquarters in Paris and last year succeeded in ambushing a startled Vladimir Putin during a visit to a German trade fair. Now the controversial activists of Femen, notorious for their topless protests on issues such as prostitution, abortion and the wearing of the hijab, are planning to target Britain.

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Munk

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Why do I see myself from ego perspective? How can I possibly be inside my body and nobody else's?

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Who defines who we are?

Are we one identity?

What is identity?

Why are small details in behavioral and social code so crucial?

Why is it not normal to have "alter egos"?

Don't we all have them?

Or are those just roles?

What is the difference between a role we play and who we are if one identity does not exist and roles can be authentic and natural?

If we don't have one identity how can we lose ourselves?

And why is it so painful?

Why and how do we give up ourselves for other (s/selves)?

Why are names important?

Can we chose who we are?

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Renzo Martens, The repatriation of the white cube

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contact us

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Use the form on the right to contact us. You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right.

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Guerrilla Girls featured on Art21 episode Bodies of Knowledge CHECK IT OUT >

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Disarstar x Jugglerz - Meine Stadt schläft nie (feat. Luvre47) [Official Video]

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"The great doesn't happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together," Vincent van Gogh wrote in contemplating principles, talking vs. doing, and the human pursuit of greatness in a beautiful letter to his brother Theo. "Making your unknown known is the important thing - and keeping the unknown always beyond you," Georgia O'Keeffe wrote in her memorable letter to Sherwood Anderson about success, public opinion, and what it really means to be an artist. But how does one keep a solid center of principled conviction while at the same time expanding outward into widening circles of growth-impulses, always reaching for the unknown without letting competence fester into complacency or perfectionism become an anchor of stagnation?

The answer to that, and to other elemental perplexities of the creative life, is what the artist Sol LeWitt (September 9, 1928-April 8, 2007) offers in a spectacular 1965 letter to the trailblazing sculptor Eva Hesse, whom he had befriended five years earlier. Hesse, a disciple of Josef Albers and a pioneer of the postminimalist art movement of the 1960s, began suffering from creative block and self-doubt shortly after moving from New York to Germany with her husband. She reached out to her friend for counsel and consolation.

The masterpiece of a response LeWitt wrote on April 14, 1965 was later included in Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience (public library) - the magnificent anthology edited by Shaun Usher, which gave us young Hunter S. Thompson on how to live a meaningful life, E.B. White's luminous assurance to a man who had lost faith in humanity, and Hemingway's tough-love advice on writing and life to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

In his impassioned five-page missive, which remains the closest thing to a personal creative credo LeWitt ever committed to words, the 41-year-old artist writes to Hesse:

Dear Eva,

It will be almost a month since you wrote to me and you have possibly forgotten your state of mind (I doubt it though). You seem the same as always, and being you, hate every minute of it. Don't! Learn to say "Fuck You" to the world once in a while. You have every right to. Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder, wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping, confusing, itching, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, numbling, rambling, gambling, tumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, horse-shitting, hair-splitting, nit-picking, piss-trickling, nose sticking, ass-gouging, eyeball-poking, finger-pointing, alleyway-sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil-eyeing, back-scratching, searching, perching, besmirching, grinding, grinding, grinding away at yourself. Stop it and just

DO

In a sentiment that calls to mind the central Buddhist notion of shunyata [emptiness] as a wellspring of wisdom, LeWitt urges Hesse to cease overthinking her art and abandon her attachments to what it must be:

From your description, and from what I know of your previous work and your ability; the work you are doing sounds very good "Drawing - clean - clear but crazy like machines, larger and bolder... real nonsense." That sounds fine, wonderful - real nonsense. Do more. More nonsensical, more crazy, more machines, more breasts, penises, cunts, whatever - make them abound with nonsense. Try and tickle something inside you, your "weird humor." You belong in the most secret part of you. Don't worry about cool, make your own uncool. Make your own, your own world. If you fear, make it work for you - draw & paint your fear & anxiety. And stop worrying about big, deep things such as "to decide on a purpose and way of life, a consistant [sic] approach to even some impossible end or even an imagined end." You must practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty. Then you will be able to

DO

LeWitt reminds Hesse that perfectionism kills creativity and, in a parallel to Jennifer Egan's assertion that bad writing is "a way of priming the pump" for great writing, urges her to surrender the addiction to good work and use the bad as a springboard into the great:

I have much confidence in you and even though you are tormenting yourself, the work you do is very good. Try to do some BAD work - the worst you can think of and see what happens but mainly relax and let everything go to hell - you are not responsible for the world - you are only responsible for your work - so DO IT. And don't think that your work has to conform to any preconceived form, idea or flavor. It can be anything you want it to be. But if life would be easier for you if you stopped working - then stop. Don't punish yourself. However, I think that it is so deeply engrained in you that it would be easier to

DO

Echoing O'Keeffe's insistence that the discipline of being an artist is about "catching crystallizing your simpler clearer version of life," LeWitt concludes:

It seems I do understand your attitude somewhat, anyway, because I go through a similar process every so often. I have an "Agonizing Reappraisal" of my work and change everything as much as possible - and hate everything I've done, and try to do something entirely different and better. Maybe that kind of process is necessary to me, pushing me on and on. The feeling that I can do better than that shit I just did. Maybe you need your agony to accomplish what you do. And maybe it goads you on to do better. But it is very painful I know. It would be better if you had the confidence just to do the stuff and not even think about it. Can't you leave the "world" and "ART" alone and also quit fondling your ego. I know that you (or anyone) can only work so much and the rest of the time you are left with your thoughts. But when you work or before your work you have to empty your mind and concentrate on what you are doing. After you do something it is done and that's that. After a while you can see some are better than others but also you can see what direction you are going. I'm sure you know all that. You also must know that you don't have to justify your work - not even to yourself. Well, you know I admire your work greatly and can't understand why you are so bothered by it. But you can see the next ones & I can't. You also must believe in your ability. I think you do. So try the most outrageous things you can - shock yourself. You have at your power the ability to do anything.

[...]

Much love to you both.

Sol

The following year, Hesse created "Hang-Up" - one of her most acclaimed and admired sculptures, of which she reflected:

It was the first time my idea of absurdity or extreme feeling came through... It is the most ridiculous structure that I ever made and that is why it is really good.

This was LeWitt's advice, made tangible and given form.

The two artists remained close friends and creative kindred spirits, exchanging ideas and influencing each other's work, for the remainder of Hesse's short life. She was slain by a brain tumor in 1970, at only thirty-four. Two days after her death, LeWitt created "Wall Drawing 46," which he dedicated to his friend. With its minimalist multitude of textured non-straight lines - a graphic element he had never used before - the piece was a significant aesthetic shift for LeWitt, who would go on to incorporate non-straight lines in his subsequent work, crediting Hesse's influence.

Complement this particular fragment of the endlessly rewarding Letters of Note with Brian Eno's "oblique strategies" for overcoming creative block, John Steinbeck's disciplined cure for self-doubt, and some of today's most celebrated artists on creative courage and what it takes to be an artist.

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Do: Sol LeWitt's Electrifying Letter of Advice on Self-Doubt, Overcoming Creative Block, and Being an Artist

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"You belong in the most secret part of you. Don't worry about cool, make your own uncool."

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David Altmejd, Crystal System

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Nachts wach Album cover

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Hamja Ahsan, I DON’T BELONG HERE, 34th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, 2021, installation view of the exhibition of the Grand Prize Winner at ZVKDS Gallery.

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Astonishing Examples of Automatic Drawing | Widewalls

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Automatic drawing is a major part of the surrealist movement and has influenced artists from varios fields of Contemporary Art

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Ausstellung

Der Künstler henk lässt sich von Texten, zufälligen Begegnungen, Gehörtem und Alltäglichem inspirieren und verzichtet im Schaffensprozess bewusst auf Regeln und festgelegte Abläufe, Absichten und Ziele. henk versteht nicht nur sein künstlerisches Schaffen als Lernprozess, sondern auch das Malen in der Gemeinschaft anderer Künstler*innen im Blaumeier-Atelier. Mit der Ausstellung Nicht zu fassen präsentiert henk einige seiner Arbeiten im Café des Blaumeier-Ateliers.

Blaumeier lädt am 2.11. um 15.30 Uhr zur Ausstellungseröffnung bei Kaffee und Kuchen ein - Kommen Sie vorbei, wir freuen uns auf Sie!

henk - servierfertig, 2 minuten abtropfen lassen
Acryl auf Leinwand leichte Sprache

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Blaumeier-Atelier Bremen - Blaumeier e.V.

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Im Blaumeier-Atelier arbeiten Künstler mit und ohne Behinderung oder psychischer Erkrankung.

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Art for All

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Homepage | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation

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Visit the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum in NYC, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Explore the famed art collection and special exhibitions.

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Project Art Works is an artist-led organisation that makes and promotes art as a means of connection with and for people with complex needs. They collaborate with neurodiverse communities, galleries, health and social care agencies to promote inclusion in civic and cultural life.

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Playful
Scattered
iconography
figurative
detailed
colorful
expression
alien
not human
blank face expression
hands
tension (body)
numbness
awareness
challenges
needs

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.      Transition
.      Neurodivergency

·      Meltdown

·      Emotion
.      Clearly
.      Stim
.      Autism

·      Personal

·      Dark
.      Connecting
.      Psychology
.      Contrast
.      Nature

·      Naïve

·      Creature

·      Alive
.      Childish

·      Chaos vs Symmetry

·      Identity
.      Communication

·      Sensory/ texture

·      Movement
.      Glimmer

·      Objects

·      Soul

·      Being

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Will the world ever be the same again by David Downes

"My autism made me an artist but I wanted a family."

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Rain Machine by Max Weaver

"I am concerned that my work might be pigeon-holed as ‘autistic art’ that is solely about the experience of being autistic, which may distract or alienate some viewers from the work itself.Instead, I view my work as a product of my whole personality, which just happens, in some aspects, to be autistic.While autistic artists are not ashamed of the condition, we do not wish for our work to be entirely defined by it either."

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Transform-06 by Jon Adams

"Although I was diagnosed later in life, being autistic has influenced my arts practice positively.I became a geological and archeological book illustrator using my skills in 3D and love of detail. I was able to work to deadlines and enjoyed the solitariness of self-employment.I started making conceptually and socially engaged projects using my synaesthesia, systemising and literalness as artistic tools. I mapped two million minutes of my life in a ‘geological metaphor’ during the London 2012 Olympics.Autistic creatives are mostly invisible and unsupported. I’ve set up Flow Observatorium to push for recognition and cultural inclusion."

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"Aspergirls" by Rudy Simone

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"But you don't look autistic at all" by Bianca Toeps

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Transition
Emotion
Personal
Communication
Identity
Sensory
Being

# data[].attributes.body
Transition
Emotion
Personal
Contrast
Creature
Chaos/symmetry
Identity
Being

# data[].attributes.body
Personal
Contrast
Creature
Identity
Being

# data[].attributes.body
Clearly
Contrast
Creature
Chaos/symmetry
Identity
Stim
Movement

# data[].attributes.body
Clear
Stim
Contrast
Nature
Alive
Creature
Chaos/ symmetry
Glimmer
Being
Soul

# data[].attributes.body
Transition
Clear
Stim
Connection
Contrast
Nature
Alive
Chaos/symmetry
Glimmer
Being
Soul

# data[].attributes.body
Nature
Naive
Movement
Creature
Alive
Childish
Sensory/ texture
Glimmer
Object
Soul
Being

# data[].attributes.body
Neurodivergency
Clear
Stim
Autism
Connecting
Childish
Sensory/texture
Glimmer
Objects
Soul

# data[].attributes.body
Neurodivergency
Meltdown
Emotion
Autism
Personal
Creature
Childish
Chaos/symmetry
Identity
Communication
Movement