here is the an interview of a young an wonderful artist Pepe Smit... I let you discover her work...
http://www.pepesmit.com/recent_work_video_picnic.html
1- Dear Pepe, tell us about yourself, what is your background and who
inspired you when you were young?
I come from The Hague, my father was a filmmaker and my mother a set
dresser. I have always seen my mother make all kind of things. I think this has
helped me to believe you can make almost anything yourself. I always make my
own film and photo sets and I like to make things look good with very little
money and a lot of tricks...
2 - What is the impact of the Luncheon on the Grass made by Manet on you?
"Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe" by Edouard Manet made a real stir when
it was first exhibited at the "Salon des Refusés" in Paris in 1863.
The impertinence of the naked woman sitting between the two dressed men was of
a totally different order than the aesthetic nudes known in the arts at that
time. The woman stares provocatively at the viewer and in doing so she makes
the viewer into a voyeur and accomplice. In my video I reverse these
roles: the man is naked and the women are having a picnic. Just like the work
of Manet the video carries a provocative tone in which the viewer is challenged
to form an opinion. Making the spectator an accomplice is something I
that is very appealing to me and many times I have used this in my work.
3 - Why have you decided to make your own one?
The use of naked woman in art is something that interests me. Manet in a
way questioned this role. The most degraded naked woman are perhaps naked woman
used as furniture. In the seventies the artist Allen Jones made a coffee
table out of a female doll, but also the Milkbar in Stanley Kubrick's "A
Clockwork Orangeis full of women who serve as furniture. The masculine
furniture in the my work can be understood as a hitherto missing counterweight
in art history. I thought it would be a way humorous revenge these women.
4 - In yours, the man is naked and the girls are eating on his back like
a dinning table. Is it just like a joke or did you want to convey a deeper
message?
In the work we see two women and a naked man. The naked man is hardly a
character, he is degraded to a "prop": a side table that provides the
women with all kinds of decadent and luxury items. In spite of their unbridled
lust for extravagant luxury such as lots of champagne, chocolates, cakes and
fruit, they cannot suppress boredom. This is pure decadence but also something
that could have taken place anywhere, anytime: women who can afford to
look beautiful in expensive clothes, who can eat and drink whatever they want,
spending all day gossiping and laughing with a friend. They are trophy wives
who serve as a status symbol or, later in life, like the woman in this video,
have ones been trophy wives and are now obliged to forfill this role forever. A
state of being which inevitably leads to enormous boredom.
5 - What do you think of Feminist Art? do you feel any affiliation?
Growing up in the seventies I was raised between feminists. Being
independent was a must. But nowadays I notice that a lot of women (especially
the Nouveau Riche), to whom freedom and independence is totally normal,
independence and freedom do not mean much anymore. They throw it all overboard
to stay home and bake cookies with the kids in their expensive kitchen on their
Gucci boots. And I myself like to do things like that to. Sometimes. I like my
position to be on the sideline. I see what happens and I see the weirdness and
the humor of it but I could be doing the seem thing myself. So I try not to be
judgmental, I just want to reveal even to to fillet everyday things like
gender roles, power relationships and stereotypes. In a humorous way and with
sugar-sweet venom. I do feel affiliation with some feminist art. I like Dana
Wyse for instance, Cindy Sherman and also the Guerrilla
Girls girls. But in general I like art or I don’t, regardless if it was
made by a man or a woman. Because my name is also a man’s name people
often think that my work was made by a man. It can be quite a surprise when
they find out I’m a woman!
