part 2
In the mean-time I’ve finished three pieces. Will show you the one I’m most ambivalent about first, a strange unwieldy thing that I don’t much like the look and feel of. I call it ‘This is a room I’ve never lived in’. For the pants-bit (crocheted a couple of years ago) I entwined black and white wools, for the upper ‘body’ I used a black yarn from a batch of hand-me-down materials, thick, coarse, heavy. Some threads flow through your fingers, are pleasant to work with. This one wasn’t, in fact every stitch required effort and seemed to leave my hands greased and stained.
The upper ‘body’. How easy it is to write such things. Umpteen different shapes had been tried, as well as yarns of various weights and colours (whites, pinks), only to be unravelled again. I wasn’t sure what the final shape should be until I’d made it. And then there was a sleeve.
And I’ve been obsessed with sleeves lately. So why does this piece makes me so uncomfortable? Part of it is the yarn I used – not only did the crocheting feel awkward, strenuous, uncouth even, its dense texture lacks beauty, is rough, almost carpet-like. Would I feel different if I’d used a delicate, silky yarn? I’m almost glad I didn’t – because of the emotions evoked it’s made me think difficult thoughts which I’ve kind of been avoiding/evading. And I’m groping about trying to formulate them.
You’ll remember I talked about the little girl’s gesture in LR’s Triumph of the Will (see post #62, 24 June 2013), which out of context could be seen as a wave but there is an approximation of a Hitler salute. In pieces like my Soldier’s child or LR’s children, the (offending) arms/sleeves are cut away. Here the arm/sleeve has become the upper body, a collar/cuff at the top leaves it open if a head or a hand might emerge. As simple as this piece is, to me it’s a bit like the return of the repressed…
In summer I was looking through old photo-albums with my mom (who will turn 80 this year), listening to her stories, even recording some. There aren’t many photos of her as a small child, and unsurprisingly none at all were taken between the age of six and eleven – the war years. When I told her about the little girl in Triumph of the Will she remembered an instance, when she was nine or ten years old, of being slapped by a 13 year-old pre-Bund Deutscher Mädel-leader for not raising her arm in Hitler salute when they passed on the street. Children were taught the salute in kindergarden, it was ‘normal’ to them. This normality, everydayness of gestures and attitudes, does get to me, as does the idea, no, the knowledge, that my mother and father would have raised their arms when greeting a teacher at school and in other contexts.
When I tried to research the Bund Deutscher Mädel one of the websites that popped up fast offered materials for re-enactments. When I thought about buying a photograph to work with and checked on ebay I couldn’t because of the worry about paying someone who might be a fascist. My feelings constantly veer between abjection and anger, resentment, revulsion; between shame and wanting to turn away to ideas around obligation and responsibility; between uncertainty about the littleness of my work and commitment to keep exploring. Deep breath now.
Looking back at my work of the last twelve years I know that the weight of German history has impacted on quite a few of my pieces, directly and indirectly, intentionally and unintentionally. Something is different now though, because it’s closer to home. On an unexpected level the materiality of this piece has connected with a gamut of emotions. This also makes me question if it’s art. Looking at it now Gogol’s story The Nose comes to mind, and Richard Kentridge’s talk on absurdity as a form of knowledge (see post #34, 22 Nov 2012). Tell me your thoughts, I’m in need of conversation.
This is a room I’ve never lived in (2013)
Dimensions: 26.5 cm x 65 cm x 4 cm
Materials: various hand-me-down wools and cottons
