National Gallery recreates Dutch red light district
Source: Agencies |
November 18, 2009, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
The National Gallery in London, one of the world's great public collections, has put on display a seedy reconstruction of Amsterdam's red light district in a rare foray into contemporary installation art.
When plans to house Ed and Nancy Kienholz's "The Hoerengracht" were announced last year, critics asked whether the normally reserved National was "prostituting itself" to contemporary art designed, at least in part, to shock.
But at a press preview yesterday, curator Colin Wiggins defended the decision to feature the installation which recreates a street and buildings caked in grime where life-like models of scantily clad women display themselves in windows. He also underlined the links between the piece and famous Dutch paintings from the 17th century that belong to the gallery's permanent collection.
"This is like walking into a 17th century Dutch painting of Amsterdam," Wiggins said. "We have pictures of gang rape, we have pictures of incest, we have pictures of murder and torture and mutilation, but because people put them in gold frames and cover them in varnish ... they're safe, they're tame."
The Kienholzes began making "The Hoerengracht" in 1983, a decade after they met and married. It took them around five years to make. Ed died in 1994 aged 66.
Visitors walk along a "street" complete with bollards and old bicycles chained to them, and small alleys down which they can walk and view the women on display.
Notable is the attention to detail, particularly in conveying the sordid, grubby nature of the streets and building interiors, complete with half-filled ashtrays, dust-covered magazines and dirty windows.
When plans to house Ed and Nancy Kienholz's "The Hoerengracht" were announced last year, critics asked whether the normally reserved National was "prostituting itself" to contemporary art designed, at least in part, to shock.
But at a press preview yesterday, curator Colin Wiggins defended the decision to feature the installation which recreates a street and buildings caked in grime where life-like models of scantily clad women display themselves in windows. He also underlined the links between the piece and famous Dutch paintings from the 17th century that belong to the gallery's permanent collection.
"This is like walking into a 17th century Dutch painting of Amsterdam," Wiggins said. "We have pictures of gang rape, we have pictures of incest, we have pictures of murder and torture and mutilation, but because people put them in gold frames and cover them in varnish ... they're safe, they're tame."
The Kienholzes began making "The Hoerengracht" in 1983, a decade after they met and married. It took them around five years to make. Ed died in 1994 aged 66.
Visitors walk along a "street" complete with bollards and old bicycles chained to them, and small alleys down which they can walk and view the women on display.
Notable is the attention to detail, particularly in conveying the sordid, grubby nature of the streets and building interiors, complete with half-filled ashtrays, dust-covered magazines and dirty windows.
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