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  MEMORY OF THE HOUSE memory of the house  
FROM THE DIARY OF A HOUSEWIFE FROM THE DIARY OF A HOUSEWIFE
FROM THE DIARY
 
 
 
 
    …What is art? Who is an artist? Why to make art? Wasn’t enough art made already? Can I make art? What should it be about? How should it look like? Should it make a statement? Political statement? Ecological? Pedagogical? Should it be beautiful? What is ‘beautiful’? What is the answer? Is there an answer? Am I able to search for it? What if not? Shouldn’t I better become a housewife? A ‘perfect housewife’? Who is a housewife? Who is a perfect housewife? What does she do? What does she think? What does she feel? Can we take a look in her life? Through the window? Aren’t curtains to thick to see clearly? So can we see, or just imagine? Is it a secret? Does she have secrets? Is she like every woman or the only one? Does she smile? Does she dream? Cry? Love? Compromise? Regret? Hesitate? Wait? What is she waiting for? What does she do while she is waiting? Does she agree? Does she understand? Is it a decision? What kind of decision? For better and for worse? Is she a heroine? Is she a victim? Does she wear Louise Bourgeois’ corset? Is she manifesting her feminism like Martha Rosler? Does she belong on the photos of abused women by Cindy Sherman? Is she angry? Bored? Lost? Indifferent? Happy? Conscious? Does she know I am thinking about her? Is she important to me? Is she me? Do I have a choice? What about her choice? Is she limited? Does she fantasize about other ways of living? Is she holding the beginning of life? Is the iron starting to live in her warm hands? Is she touched by the presence of a meat grinder? Can she develop affection for the vacuum cleaner? How to approach the object? Confront it? Experience it? Is the object a body? What is the basic condition of an object then? Does an object ‘become’ only because of human perception? Is an iron ‘the iron’ only by linguistic recognition? Does the existence of an object depend on a particular time and space? What is time? What is space? Does time always depend on space? Maybe it is the other way around? Can an object exist without time, without space? Can an object ‘be’ just on its own? Does it change its character? Purpose? Meaning? What is the meaning of the object? Must it serve to carry water? Or preserve the ashes of the hero? Should it be beautiful? Is it beautiful? Is it beautiful if it is not useful anymore? Can the meat grinder be appreciated not for its purpose of grinding meat but for its appearance? Shape? Colour? Structure? Smell? Personality? Deformations? Defects? Do we need the wisdom of Marcel Duchamp to recognize the beauty of common objects? Should we distinguish objects by giving them names to consecrate them? Do we recognize ourselves in the mirror of our surrounding objects? Is the reflection distorted? Have we ever observed a chair shifting from one foot to another? Or a table bending its knees when very tired? Are objects always correct? Or are we constantly instable? Are we intimidated by the objects? Can we develop a relationship with them? How the relationship changes if the object is multiplied? How much does it transform when talking about gender identity? Do objects have a gender? Does the gender of an object change in relation to other objects? How do we recognize it? Does it develop together with circumstances? Or maybe objects have Duchamp’s wholeness – unity of personality? Can objects be subjects? Participants? Members? Are objects witnesses of Philip Guston’s social critique or just a colourful background? Can they be symbols? What do they symbolize in the art work of Richard Hamilton? Irony? Affluence? Fascination? Are they active? Are they alive? What happens when they decompose like in Claes Oldenburg’s cycle of life? And what’s remaining when the objects themselves are gone? Do they leave traces? Can we chase them? Can we catch them? Rediscover? Reconstruct? Rethink? Are they more interesting after all? More beautiful?...

25-02-2007

  
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