Et Alors? Magazine 10
Et Alors? Magazine is an ongoing research project, focused on documenting contemporary queer art and LGBT creativity, solely written and designed by Fleur Pierets & Julian P. Boom. Married and female. By using the conventional magazine format as a creative platform to publish in-depth interviews and positive portraits on musicians, visual artists, writers and performers, they challenge and expand the mainstream understandings on the specific niche of queer art. The project both highlights contemporary artists and the many creative individuals who have put their unique stamp on art history. Et Alors? Magazine is a time document that continually captures the zeitgeist of a changing world, supporting the creation, the research and the development of projects that explore diversity, gender, feminism and queer topics on an optimistic, cultural, artistic and intellectual level.
Et Alors? Magazine is an ongoing research project, focused on documenting contemporary queer art and LGBT creativity, solely written and designed by Fleur Pierets & Julian P. Boom. Married and female. By using the conventional magazine format as a creative platform to publish in-depth interviews and positive portraits on musicians, visual artists, writers and performers, they challenge and expand the mainstream understandings on the specific niche of queer art. The project both highlights contemporary artists and the many creative individuals who have put their unique stamp on art history. Et Alors? Magazine is a time document that continually captures the zeitgeist of a changing world, supporting the creation, the research and the development of projects that explore diversity, gender, feminism and queer topics on an optimistic, cultural, artistic and intellectual level.
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et alors?<br />
a f l a m b o y a n t m a g a z i n e
23.09.2014<br />
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editorial <strong>10</strong><br />
Darlings!<br />
Let me start by telling you what we’ve been up to lately!<br />
First of all, the city of Ghent –a small, historical town in<br />
Belgium – just signed the Rainbow declaration. Committing<br />
different civil society players -such as the police force, soccer<br />
club KAA Gent, the cities alderman of diversity and many<br />
more- to fight against homo- and transphobia. Needless to<br />
say we fully support this declaration, especially since we were<br />
asked to make an <strong>Et</strong> <strong>Alors</strong>? special on Ghent. So we shone our<br />
devastatingly cheerful spotlight on the LGBTQ creative scene<br />
of this wonderful city. And did we have fun! We transformed<br />
one of Ghent’s most beautiful women and actress Pascale<br />
Platel into Amanda Lepore to shine brightly on our cover.<br />
We discovered an utterly creative scene, but most of all<br />
we discovered a town that is open-minded and decisively<br />
positive regarding diversity. If you can read Dutch, you can<br />
check out this special edition on our website. Or you can visit<br />
Ghent and get your printed copy for free over there.<br />
Shortly after our city edition deadline something entirely new<br />
came up. Contemporary art museum MU in Eindhoven, The<br />
Netherlands, was preparing a huge exhibition on the gender<br />
theme and asked us to create their catalogue. Eager to learn<br />
and in big favor of anything out of the box, we dived into this<br />
new project filled with gender blenders from all sorts.<br />
During all this we miraculously also found the time for this<br />
<strong>10</strong>th edition of our Gay, Drag and Genderbending magazine.<br />
Just in time to provide you with some holiday readings,<br />
filled with positive vibes, gayety and the power of love.<br />
We’re proud to feature the first pictures of the identity swap<br />
between two of our favorites, Marnie Scarlet and Le Pustra.<br />
Furthermore we’re celebrating ‘Extravaganza’, a new party<br />
concept that allows anyone to be whoever they want to be.<br />
So we’re off again! To the gorgeous island of Ibiza for starters.<br />
You might catch us there, floating around in a swimming pool<br />
with a happy smile on our faces. More likely we will be talking<br />
to some extraordinary people to provide you with new stories<br />
for <strong>Et</strong> <strong>Alors</strong>? <strong>Magazine</strong> #11 which is due in September 2014.<br />
For now, enjoy the holidays, enjoy life and enjoy each other.<br />
Because after all, life is a onetime party that has to be<br />
celebrated fiercely.<br />
Keep safe, stay gorgeous!<br />
Fleur & Julian<br />
et alors? 003
Model: Sven Ratzke Fotograaf: Dennis Veldman Visagie en Styling: Joost Gimbel<br />
torenallee 40-60 eindhoven mu.nl
et alors? magazine<br />
june 2014<br />
issue <strong>10</strong><br />
editor in chief<br />
fleur pierets<br />
art director & layout<br />
julian p. boom<br />
contributors<br />
clover leary<br />
dennis veldman<br />
emilie jouvet<br />
eric charles<br />
extravaganza<br />
fleur pierets<br />
gabriel maher<br />
han hoogerbrugge<br />
hannah honeywill<br />
hannah vleugels<br />
heather cassils<br />
jonas lindström<br />
joost gimbel<br />
matthijs holland<br />
nanne op ‘t ende<br />
nora van craen<br />
pyuupiru<br />
rené moritz<br />
robin black<br />
silvia b.<br />
sin bozkurt<br />
tareq de montfort<br />
wetzer & baauw<br />
table of contents<br />
editorial<br />
table of contents<br />
expo<br />
editors’ readings<br />
heather cassils<br />
tareq de montfort<br />
the cabaret switch<br />
rein vollenga<br />
extravaganza<br />
silvia b.<br />
pyuupiru<br />
sven ratzke<br />
in conversation with jantien seeuws<br />
matthijs holland<br />
wetzer & baauw<br />
websites<br />
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006<br />
008<br />
0<strong>10</strong><br />
012<br />
022<br />
028<br />
040<br />
050<br />
064<br />
078<br />
086<br />
096<br />
<strong>10</strong>6<br />
116<br />
122<br />
et alors? magazine 2014<br />
www.etalorsmagazine.com<br />
006 et alors?
et alors? magazine is a quarterly<br />
free publication. independently<br />
published by et alors? magazine.<br />
all rights reserved.<br />
reproduction of any part of this<br />
magazine is strictly prohibited<br />
without prior permission from the<br />
publisher. however, permission is<br />
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a direct link back to<br />
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where all the credits associated to<br />
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are included.<br />
the views expressed in et alors?<br />
magazine are those of the<br />
respective contributors and are<br />
definitely shared by the magazine<br />
and its staff.<br />
for advertisement enquiries<br />
gabrielle@etalorsmagazine.com<br />
fleur & julian say thanks to<br />
mu eindhoven<br />
renate breuer<br />
ingrid van den bossche & tom van der bruggen<br />
for everything else<br />
info@etalorsmagazine.com<br />
et alors?<br />
a f l a m b o y a n t m a g a z i n e<br />
cover model<br />
name maria kleopatra<br />
location brugge, belgium<br />
talents genderqueer, pansexual, vegan, goth, jazzhead, here to conquer the<br />
world with his fabulousness.<br />
website www.mariakleopatra.tumblr.com<br />
EUR9,95€ - UK7,65£ - USA12,25$<br />
et alors? magazine<br />
in collaboration with<br />
photography julian p. boom<br />
concept fleur pierets<br />
model maria kleopatra<br />
styling & mua maria kleopatra<br />
et alors? 007
thomas ruff<br />
This exhibition comprises five series of photos by the<br />
German photographer Thomas Ruff (1958, Zell am<br />
Harmersbach) ranging from the start of his artistic<br />
career in the late 1970s to recent work in 2014. As<br />
one of the protagonists of the Dusseldorf School<br />
of Photography he became most widely known for<br />
his portraits, several of which are in the S.M.A.K.<br />
collection. The selection of photos being shown<br />
under the title ‘Lichten’ takes as its philosophical<br />
and scientific thread the spectrum between natural<br />
and virtual light – a fundamental shift that has<br />
taken place in the medium of photography over the<br />
last thirty years. Ruff pushed the capacities of the<br />
supercomputers at this scientific research institute<br />
to the extreme.<br />
after our bodies meet: from resistance to potentiality<br />
The exhibition explores queer feminist artists’<br />
responses to dominant notions about the body<br />
from the 1970s to present day. Reflecting the ever<br />
growing diversity of feminist art, this exhibition<br />
provides a cross-cultural examination of how artists<br />
represent the body to challenge past and present<br />
forms of oppression and to envision a queer future.<br />
Curated by Alexis Heller, the exhibition traces the<br />
efforts of contemporary queer artists within the<br />
legacy of early feminist art. Bridging these historic<br />
and contemporary endeavors not only honors the<br />
pioneers of gender-conscious art but also highlights<br />
the evolution of feminist thought within artistic<br />
representations of queer bodies, including some<br />
that question the gender binary on which feminism<br />
was first conceived.<br />
s.m.a.k. gent<br />
may 17 - august 24, 2014<br />
photo © thomas ruff<br />
www.smak.be<br />
leslie + lohman museum, new york<br />
june 5 - july 27, 2014<br />
photo © chitra ganesh ‘atlas’<br />
www.leslielohman.org<br />
008 et alors?
expo<br />
erwin wurm: one minute sculptures<br />
Doing press-ups on coffee cups, balancing on<br />
oranges, flying on a broom, everything is possible<br />
– for one minute. Within this context, the Austrian<br />
artist Erwin Wurm will be placing works from his<br />
series ‘One Minute Sculptures’ – older ones as<br />
well as some developed especially for the Städel<br />
collection – in the Städel Garden, the Metzler Hall,<br />
and the Old Masters and Modern Art exhibition<br />
galleries. These interactive works call upon the<br />
viewers to do more than merely look at the museum<br />
artworks surrounding them, but to experience the<br />
artworks and themselves in new ways. In the form<br />
of drawings or brief written directions, the visitor is<br />
instructed and encouraged to become an artwork –<br />
a ‘One Minute Sculpture’ – for the duration of sixty<br />
seconds.<br />
the städel museum, frankfurt<br />
may 7 - july 13, 2014<br />
photo © erwin wurm<br />
www.staedelmuseum.de<br />
comics unmasked<br />
UK’s largest ever exhibition of mainstream and<br />
underground comics, showcasing works that<br />
uncompromisingly address politics, gender, violence,<br />
sexuality and altered states. It explores the<br />
full anarchic range of the medium with works that<br />
challenge categorization, preconceptions and the<br />
status quo, alongside original scripts, preparatory<br />
sketches and final artwork that demystify the creative<br />
process. Featuring such iconic names as Neil<br />
Gaiman (Sandman), Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for<br />
Vendetta), etc., this exhibition traces the British<br />
comics tradition back through classic 1970s titles<br />
including 2000AD, Action and Misty to 19th-century<br />
illustrated reports of Jack the Ripper and even medieval<br />
manuscripts. Enter the subversive and revelatory<br />
world of comics, from the earliest pioneers to<br />
today’s digital innovators.<br />
british library, london<br />
may 2 - august 19, 2014<br />
photo © jamie hewlett<br />
www.bl.uk<br />
et alors? 009
haute africa<br />
christophe de jaeger, ramona van gansbeke<br />
Haute Africa is the catalogue of the The Photo<br />
Festival of Knokke Heist. The book and the exhibition<br />
highlights the work of several leading international<br />
photographers. It focuses on the work of artists<br />
who are not interested in African fashion per se, but<br />
who choose to conduct an anthropological study<br />
of contemporary African clothing culture. With<br />
their fine sense for developments in society, they<br />
reflect on the various social, political and economic<br />
issues that fashion expresses. African designers,<br />
entrepreneurs and photographers inspire the world<br />
with new designs that convey and renew African<br />
identity and examine topics such as Westernisation,<br />
post-Colonialism, race and gender equality, religious<br />
beliefs or political power.<br />
lannoo<br />
208 pages<br />
isbn 9789401414586<br />
www.lannoo.be<br />
www.fotofestival.knokke-heist.be<br />
nudes<br />
thomas ruff and text by michel houellebecq<br />
Ruff is another graduate of the Becher’s master class<br />
at the Dusseldorf Academy of Art, having graduated<br />
in the mid-80s. Ruff blurs the photographs,<br />
changes their color, and greatly enlarges them-by<br />
altering them in these various ways, he completely<br />
recontextualizes the imagery and pushes to the<br />
foreground the isolation inherent in all pornography.<br />
The book is a photographic collection of Nudes.<br />
Images which are based on Internet pornography,<br />
digitally processed and obscured without any<br />
camera or traditional photographic device. This<br />
collection of pictures, which are graphic and abstract<br />
at the same time, is accompanied by an excerpt from<br />
a forthcoming novel by controversial Frenchwriter<br />
Michel Houellebecq. <strong>10</strong>0 full-color illustrations.<br />
hna books<br />
160 pages<br />
isbn 08<strong>10</strong>945819<br />
www.powells.com<br />
0<strong>10</strong> et alors?
editors’ readings<br />
american savage<br />
dan savage<br />
On the heels of his Emmy-winning It Gets Better<br />
campaign, columnist and provocateur Dan Savage<br />
weighs in on diverse issues as healthcare, gun control<br />
and marriage equality, with characteristic straight<br />
talk and humor. Dan Savage has a loyal audience,<br />
thanks to his syndicated sex-advice column Savage<br />
Love. Since the incredible global success of his It<br />
Gets Better project, his profile has skyrocketed. He’s<br />
written for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and<br />
countless other widely read publications. Savage<br />
is recognized as someone whose opinions about<br />
our culture, politics, and society should not only<br />
be listened to but taken seriously. In American<br />
Savage, he writes on topics ranging from marriage,<br />
parenting, and the gay agenda to the Catholic<br />
Church and sex education.<br />
dutton adult<br />
320 pages<br />
isbn 0525954<strong>10</strong>4<br />
www.savagelovecast.com<br />
50 gay and lesbian books everybody must read<br />
richard canning<br />
Gay topics have been central to most national literary<br />
traditions, whether in fiction, memoir, drama, or<br />
verse. Yet crossover success stories are remarkably<br />
few, as are works of literature about gay subjects,<br />
written by heterosexual authors. Furthermore,<br />
openly gay-themed books tend to get passed over in<br />
favor of works more evidently addressing ‘universal’<br />
or ‘mainstream’ concerns. Here’s the book that cues<br />
you in to the essential titles in the gay and lesbian<br />
literary canon. Canning tackles important themes,<br />
issues of regional and cultural diversity, political<br />
aspects, and analyses of that old chestnut: What<br />
makes a work of literature gay or lesbian? Don’t<br />
expect a definitive answer. Do expect to learn why<br />
these titles are must-reads.<br />
alyson books<br />
288 pages<br />
isbn 1593501196<br />
www.vrolijk.nu<br />
et alors? 011
© heather cassils & robin black 2011
heather<br />
cassils<br />
part of the genderblender exhibition<br />
interview fleur pierets photos heather cassils
Cassils first caught our eye in the ‘Telephone’<br />
video, where the performance artist and personal<br />
trainer made out with Lady Gaga in the prison yard.<br />
Intrigued about this appearance, we discovered a<br />
highly intelligent artist who pushes the boundaries<br />
of the body while making statements on today’s<br />
perception of the image. Creating a visual language<br />
that uses the physical body as sculptural mass,<br />
Cassils turns exercise into a metaphor for a society<br />
that is obsessed with consumption and surface.<br />
Can you tell me about your art?<br />
I used to paint and draw a lot when I was a child. I<br />
remember that when I was 6 years old, I won a<br />
drawing competition. I always was a bit of a weird<br />
kid and I think that was the first time I have ever<br />
been acknowledged. Although I work with the body<br />
now, I was always a kind of secret painter. And I do<br />
watercolours, but don’t tell anyone!<br />
Why did you start working with your body?<br />
I started making art with my body for different<br />
reasons. Partially it was due to education. When I was<br />
20, I worked for The Franklin Furnace, NYC’s largest<br />
non-profit organisation dedicated to performance<br />
art. Here I was hugely exposed to epic body based<br />
performances that they housed in their archives.<br />
I went to Nova Scotia College of Art and Design,<br />
an art school in Canada heavily influenced by 70’s<br />
conceptualism and I got my masters from California<br />
Institute of the Arts, where I read a lot of Marxist<br />
theory and learned about institutional critique<br />
from Michael Asher, who remains to this day, a big<br />
influence. I also came to my body through an illness I<br />
survived as a child. It sounds rather benign but it was<br />
called undiagnosed bladder disease. What it meant<br />
was that for 4 years, I was sick but they would tell<br />
my family that it was something in my mind. That it<br />
was a psychosomatic issue. It got to the point where<br />
my bile ducts ruptured and my skin actually turned<br />
green. When they opened me up I was literally<br />
rotting. I was hospitalized for a couple of months<br />
and almost died. It made me want to know all about<br />
the body. Not just intuitively, but understand it<br />
scientifically. So that I could not only be more in tune<br />
with it , but I could advocate for my body and teach<br />
others to do so as well. I learned early on how sexist<br />
and dismissive the medical establishment can be.<br />
Your work tends to respond to a specific context.<br />
It does, take for example the ‘Cuts: A Traditional<br />
014 et alors?
© heather cassils 2011
© heather cassils & eric charles 2012
Sculpture’ piece. I was asked by Los Angeles<br />
Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), a non-profit arts<br />
organization here in LA, to respond to the trajectory<br />
of work that was created in southern California<br />
from the early 60’s to the mid 80’s: to look into<br />
the archive and to find work that I found inspiring.<br />
I ended up making a reinterpretation of Eleanor<br />
Antin’s 1972 performance ‘Carving: A Traditional<br />
Sculpture’ in which Antin crash dieted for 45 days<br />
and documented her body daily with photographs. It<br />
resulted in 72 photographs showing how she starved<br />
herself. Rather than crash diet, I built my body to<br />
its maximum capacity over 23 weeks. I did this by<br />
adhering to a strict bodybuilding regime. I had<br />
designed a diet where I consumed the caloric intake<br />
of a 180-pound male athlete. I documented my body<br />
as it changed, taking four photos a day, from four<br />
vantage points. I collapsed 23 weeks of training into<br />
23 seconds, creating a time-lapse video.<br />
Quite an extreme thing to do.<br />
Absolutely, but I wanted it to be extreme. And you<br />
mustn’t forget that Antin’s work was made in a<br />
different era. Now you can easily find websites like<br />
‘Thinspiration’ – an inspiration website for women<br />
who want to be anorectic. There is just so much<br />
more of an extreme in our society these days. It is<br />
very different from the 70’s. I got very interested<br />
in marrying that kind of political criticism with the<br />
extreme image fascination of contemporary society.<br />
I felt that it wasn’t enough for me to just lift a little<br />
weights. I wanted to take the project to a maximum<br />
capacity, to be extremely regimented. That being<br />
said, I think the definition of extreme is relative.<br />
Personally I think it is really extreme to sit at a desk all<br />
day and eat shitty food. What I do is a performance<br />
of an extremity that already exists in our society. I<br />
am interested in taking things to a heightened level,<br />
to show the boundaries and to exaggerate the other<br />
end of the spectrum. To show the construction of<br />
these ideas and expand the notions around the<br />
body by ‘mis’ performing them. That being said, of<br />
course I don’t just rush into things. With the ‘Cuts’<br />
piece I had my blood tested to make sure all my<br />
levels where within a healthy range. I made sure<br />
that I wasn’t compromising myself. I do things just<br />
like a stunt person would do it. I take risks but they<br />
are calculated risks. I always train with precision and<br />
with balance for my artwork towards a specific goal.<br />
For ‘Cuts’ I had to gain muscle, for ‘Becoming An<br />
‘I am interested<br />
in taking things<br />
to a heightened<br />
level, to show the<br />
boundaries and<br />
to exaggerate the<br />
other end of the<br />
spectrum.<br />
Image’ I had to lose muscle and have an incredible<br />
cardiovascular ability. For my next piece I have<br />
to learn to expend my breath. My work is a daily<br />
process of preparing myself. It doesn’t feel hard on<br />
my body, in fact it feels hard on my body to eat bad<br />
food and drink a lot of alcohol. Not that I am this<br />
crazy, rigid person. I do live a little, you know.<br />
Can you talk more about the concept of hyper<br />
performance or themes of exaggeration in your<br />
work?<br />
An artists’ work translate their subjective experiences<br />
in the world and their work provides a formal<br />
representation of these observations. I live in Los<br />
Angeles, the centre for the industrialised production<br />
of images. Yes, I am interested in exaggerating the<br />
parameters around gender, and therefore revealing<br />
their construction but then I am also interested in<br />
unpacking the way that images are made in a similar<br />
way. Take for example the ‘Becoming an Image’<br />
piece. The performance took place in a completely<br />
light-free environment. The only elements in<br />
the space were the audience, a photographer,<br />
myself and a block of clay weighing 2000 pounds.<br />
Throughout the performance, I used my skills as a<br />
boxer/fighter to unleash a full-blown attack on the<br />
clay, literally beating the form. The only light source<br />
emitted came from the flash mounted on the<br />
et alors? 017
photographer’s camera, so you become very aware<br />
of the way a photograph is taken. This performance<br />
raising questions of witnessing, documentation,<br />
memory and evidence.You become aware of your<br />
own position in the room and you realise that what<br />
you are seeing, is different from what another<br />
viewer experiences. It makes one think critically<br />
about a document.<br />
Why do you identify as genderqueer/ transgender.<br />
Isn’t this just another box?<br />
Because I do not opt to fully transition. My breasts<br />
are intact, my voice still identified as a female voice<br />
my lack of facial hair or male pattern baldness.<br />
I am read some times as male, depending on the<br />
amount of muscle I carry on my frame, but more<br />
often as an angry aggressive woman defying my<br />
biological gender roles. In this way I am always<br />
read as female. That doesn’t feel good. I don’t<br />
insist that people call me by male pronounce, that<br />
kind of happened on its own, but people always put<br />
you in a box. Whether you like it or not. So I think<br />
it is important to provide information. To quote<br />
Kathy Acker: ‘I am looking for the body, my body,<br />
which exists outside its patriarchal definitions. Of<br />
course that is not possible. But who is any longer<br />
interested in the possible?’<br />
It relates to my work in a way that it is all about<br />
shifting the vision, the parameter, instead of<br />
judging at first sight. Identifying like this doesn’t<br />
put me in a fixed position because my work is all<br />
about being unfixed. Let’s say the work is ahead of<br />
the pronoun.<br />
And do you succeed in communicating that<br />
message?<br />
It really depends. For the ‘Cuts’ piece I created a<br />
slick photo pointing towards the fashion industry<br />
called ‘Advertisement: Homage to Benglis’. This<br />
image was made at the height of my muscularity<br />
after 123 days of intense dieting, training and six<br />
weeks on steroids. A Trans man told me that if he<br />
had seen this image ten years ago, he might have<br />
made a different decisions with his body. That’s<br />
quite an interesting reaction as it shows the lack<br />
of representations for people with non normative<br />
bodies and the importance in creating those<br />
representations. But I also had pages and pages of<br />
transphobic hate mail when I launched a project on<br />
the Huffington gay voices section.<br />
You want to open people’s brains a bit.<br />
I aim to contradict the notion that, in order<br />
to change one’s sex one must undergo major<br />
surgery and commit to a lifetime of supplemental<br />
hormones. Sandy Stone, cultural/media theorist<br />
and performance artist broaches this topic in her<br />
‘Posttranssexual Manifesto’ when she problematizes<br />
the medicalization of transgender identities. In<br />
order to obtain hormones, or receive a referral for<br />
gender reassignment surgery, a trans‐identified<br />
person must answer a battery of questions<br />
according to a certain rubric: For example, in pursuit<br />
of differential diagnosis a question sometimes<br />
asked of a prospective transsexual is: ‘Suppose that<br />
you could be a man - or a woman - in every way<br />
except for your genitals, would you be content?’<br />
There are several possible answers, but only one is<br />
correct. In case the reader is unsure, let me supply<br />
the clinically correct answer: ‘No’. Stone expounds<br />
upon the ‘wrong body’ discourse perpetuated by<br />
this particular approach: in order to obtain the<br />
body they desire, hopeful transsexuals must first<br />
admit that their current body is in fact ‘wrong’<br />
according to the arbitrary, but pervasive dictates<br />
of the heteronormative gender binary, and is in<br />
need of medical intervention to fix it. I do not claim<br />
to seek to circumvent the medicalization of Trans<br />
identity but ‘Cuts’ , as a work taken in art historical<br />
context, addresses the issue obliquely by playing<br />
with the formal qualities appropriated from Antin’s<br />
Carving. However, where Antin’s is presented<br />
as a bleak anthropometric record of a woman’s<br />
body deteriorating under the pressure of society’s<br />
expectations, mine is a monument to progress and<br />
personal ambition. I am not saying I have a problem<br />
with medicalized transitions, people have to make<br />
their own choices and I respect those choices. But I<br />
have the feeling a lot of important critical questions<br />
aren’t being asked about the medicalization of<br />
trans bodies. We are living in a society where we are<br />
taught that everything can be fixed by a simple pill.<br />
It is a microwave mentality.<br />
Keyword is being critical?<br />
Yes, and critical doesn’t mean negative. Culture is<br />
shifting very quickly and it is fashionable to be Trans<br />
these days. That is strange for me because being<br />
Trans has always been about maintaining another<br />
form of critical distance from the centre. I would like<br />
to reference here Transgendered art historian Susan<br />
018 et alors?
© clover leary 20<strong>10</strong>
© heather cassils & robin black 2011
Stryker, who writes: ‘Transgender has come to<br />
suggest a crossing that may in fact have little to do<br />
with gender, much less homosexuality. ‘It has come<br />
to mean the movement across a socially imposed<br />
boundary away from an unchosen starting place’.<br />
Rather than any particular destination or mode of<br />
transition.<br />
Can you tell me a bit more on expanding the<br />
notion around politics and society.<br />
We are living in a society that is obsessed with<br />
consumption and surface. Where it is all about<br />
stability and fixedness. In my work I like to question<br />
those obsessions. ‘Hard Times’ for example was<br />
made during the economic crisis of 2008, in<br />
California. It was a crazy time where businesses<br />
where closing and everybody was losing their jobs.<br />
Basically I saw this character of a body builder as<br />
a metaphor for the kind of emphases placed on<br />
surface. I was interested in taking this character, this<br />
blond body builder, and have her stand for the idea<br />
of a society that is crumbling under its own weight.<br />
Its an illusion, in a way. I perform the piece on a<br />
building scaffold. I hold a traditional body building<br />
pose but I slow it down tremendously. So when<br />
you hold the muscular contraction for an extended<br />
time, it creates a systematic overload of the nervous<br />
system. The body starts to crumble under its own<br />
contraction. I used that physiological phenomenon<br />
to inform the subject matter. Another component is<br />
the sound, which literally rumbles your insides. You<br />
see the body shake, the scaffolding contract and the<br />
way the lighting cues are built into the piece, reveals<br />
the construction of the image.<br />
Do you consider yourself an activist?<br />
I don’t know if I would call myself an activist. But<br />
when I look at artists whose work I am really inspired<br />
by - Adrian Piper, David Wojnarowicz, Eleanor Antin,<br />
Valiy Export, Kara Walker, Tom of Finland, Douglas<br />
Emory, Ron Athey, Felix Gonzalez Torres - I see that<br />
they are all using their minds, bodies and subjectivity<br />
to talk about social issues. I see myself coming from<br />
that space, being formed from that position. So I<br />
hope I can contribute to a constructive conversation.<br />
So yes, maybe that is a form of activism in a way.<br />
What are you working on right now?<br />
I am working on a new performance piece. As I said<br />
earlier, I am living in this crazy city where almost<br />
‘We are living in<br />
a society that is<br />
obsessed with<br />
consumption and<br />
surface. Where it is<br />
all about stability<br />
and fixedness. In<br />
my work I like to<br />
question those<br />
obsessions.<br />
everything is about the industrial production of<br />
images for film and television. This weird place<br />
where stories are being told about what is happening<br />
elsewhere. During the war with Iraq I had all these<br />
young actors in my gym, asking me to make them<br />
look like a soldier for a role. And I was thinking about<br />
the simulation of violence, the real violence and the<br />
distance between those two things. So for my next<br />
piece I am going to perform a full body burn. It will<br />
be a live performance but also the making of a film.<br />
So people will see how I made this performance.<br />
They can see that the violence is controlled and<br />
simulated, but can also see the real danger. The<br />
image you see at first that looks like a burning body.<br />
By the end of the film you will realize that you have<br />
been manipulated to think that this is a traumatic<br />
image, while it is a simulation of a traumatic<br />
image. I plan to shoot it in slow motion. Because a<br />
fire stunt can only last for a short amount of time,<br />
as long as you can exhale, if you inhale during the<br />
performance, you burn your oesophagus. That is the<br />
danger: the skin you can protect quite well but you<br />
have to control your breath.<br />
Your whole life revolves around your art.<br />
I use my body in my work so yes, it is a daily process of<br />
preparing myself. It gives me the purpose I need because<br />
otherwise I would wonder about the point of it all.<br />
www.heathercassils.com<br />
et alors? 021
tareq<br />
de<br />
montfort<br />
part of the genderblender exhibition<br />
interview fleur pierets photos tareq de montfort<br />
First things first: can the Islamic world be called<br />
avant-garde?<br />
Like all the monotheistic religions, at its birth, Islam<br />
was an avant-garde movement, in this instance of<br />
medieval Arabia. During its Golden Age, the Islamic<br />
world was avant-garde in comparison to Europe and<br />
also in the arts during the brief cultural revolution of<br />
the 19th century called Al–Nahda.<br />
Now it is very backward, the present forms of Islam<br />
are not avant-garde. My work and personal beliefs<br />
are, but you asked about the Islamic ‘world’. Saudi<br />
Arabia is discreetly leading the way in science and<br />
research, it is the avant-garde in science today. So<br />
yes, there are examples of the Islamic world leading<br />
the forefront of innovation and development.<br />
The main theme in your work is beauty. Do you<br />
consider yourself to be an artist or rather an<br />
aesthete?<br />
There is no difference between my state of being<br />
as a human, an artist, ascetic, aesthete or devotee<br />
of beauty. I simply seek to be. ‘Kun’, meaning ‘to<br />
be’, is a mystic Islamic state of being. I aspire to be<br />
a contemporary Muhsin. A Muhsin is the highest<br />
calling in life in conventional Islam and can be<br />
explained as ‘one who is in constant pursuit and<br />
adoration of perfection and beauty’. So if anything, I<br />
am a contemporary Muhsin.<br />
You once said that beauty has been damaged<br />
by artists and intellectuals and that you want to<br />
revive it. Can you elaborate?<br />
Beauty today has been reduced to a faded image.<br />
When the modern avant-garde movement, Dada<br />
and others destroyed beauty, or rather attempted<br />
to reshape it, they consequently annexed a complex<br />
layering of many forms of beauty. Beauty has a noble<br />
lineage, it originates with siblings truth, kindness<br />
and goodness and divinity itself. To understand<br />
this, I think one needs to turn to Plato’s hierarchy of<br />
et alors? 023
forms and the ideas of the good and the beautiful,<br />
or an easier read like Elaine Scarry’s ‘On Beauty<br />
and Being Just’. Horribly simplified: at the lowest<br />
level of the hierarchy are forms of material beauty.<br />
Higher in the hierarchy we find forms of ideas. And<br />
at the top of the ideas is that which is divine. Here<br />
lie compassion, kindness, and empathy. Beauty is<br />
also a metaphoric emblem for justice, a powerful<br />
utilitarian gift to humanity to benefit the pursuit of<br />
happiness. I could go on.<br />
My revivalist aspirations regard the Arab lands and<br />
Islam. Islam, in purer, mystic origin is an ideology<br />
seeking an ideal state of being. With a doctrine<br />
of the pursuit of beauty, mostly forgotten by<br />
current Islam, you can define it as Romantic. It is<br />
academically accepted that the Romantic poets<br />
took much influence from the Levant. The Romantic<br />
revolution of the 18th and 19th century affected<br />
the arts but also infiltrated politics. Parallels exist<br />
between socio-economic issues of the West at that<br />
time and the Arab-Islamic world now. Ideals and<br />
politics of romanticism as well as the mythos of<br />
the Cult of Beauty movements have acute abilities<br />
to address various predicaments in the Middle East<br />
today. With tradition and history still accessible in<br />
the Middle East there is still time to salvage wisdom.<br />
A wisdom with the potential to bring into existence<br />
Kun, an improved existence which we all desire.<br />
Romanticism is seen as irrational and unrealistic<br />
from a Western perspective. An Islamic pursuit is to<br />
realise a reflection of paradise on earth and a Sufi<br />
once said that ‘Rationality destroys this world and<br />
the next’. In the Arab, Islamic world romanticism is a<br />
reality. The mystic path offers a way to explain all the<br />
things that academics and intellectuals have tried<br />
for centuries to unravel but couldn’t capture. The<br />
Romantic revolution took the moon as its emblem in<br />
challenge of the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason<br />
represented by the sun. The moon offered the<br />
knowledge of mysticism, poetry and metaphysics.<br />
This mystic element was Mohammed’s experience<br />
of Islam, how it is meant to be experienced.<br />
In terms of theoretical narrative, beauty is a<br />
platform for unity between dualities in opposition. A<br />
meeting of the self and the other. The philosophy of<br />
beauty I am developing owes much to Platonic and<br />
Sufi thoughts. Sufism is derived from Plato; Sufism<br />
and Platonism are siblings from a heritage of Islamic<br />
scholars whose rediscovery of classic knowledge<br />
lead to the western Renaissance. That harmony,<br />
that kind of inspiring relationship between such<br />
opposing cultures, the irony that we owe so much to<br />
each other and have an intimate relationship that is<br />
centuries old: that is a splinter of the definition of a<br />
higher form of beauty.<br />
I believe your work is a revolution against our<br />
rational society?<br />
Revolution is a word you may use. My idea of<br />
revolution does not correspond to how revolutions<br />
have played out thus far, with those at the top falling<br />
down and those previously at the bottom going up<br />
to create something akin to what was just removed.<br />
I believe in revolution in accordance to the doctrine<br />
of beauty, which starts with the self. A romantic<br />
revolution.<br />
Furthermore, rationality has its rightful place.<br />
Balance is needed; I don’t desire everyone to live<br />
according to what I or anyone else claims to be ‘the<br />
way’. If my work is a revolution then certainly not<br />
one against your rational society. I will only ever<br />
be ‘against’ anything if boundaries are put in place.<br />
The rational and irrational need each other, just like<br />
the East and West have always been in a passionate<br />
affair: we just need to realize it. Just like the self<br />
and the other need to achieve an affinity. One<br />
must understand, or at least accept or respect the<br />
possibility that one’s self may actually be irrational.<br />
That the other person, who is considered to be<br />
irrational, may be the rational one.<br />
What is your philosophy on the concept of Gender?<br />
It is in constant change with society, with ideals,<br />
with culture. I believe our normative, general and<br />
conservative understanding of gender is basicly<br />
unsophisticated and incomplete. I don’t think there<br />
is one absolute truth or comprehension to gender.<br />
It is fluid, an ethereal evanescence that defies<br />
understanding and can only be lived. That can only<br />
be.<br />
Can you talk about the work that you are showing<br />
at the GenderBlender exhibition?<br />
The works are from the collection called ‘Wajahat<br />
al–Rajul: The Grace of Men’, displaying the Arab or<br />
Eastern male reposing with an elegance, grace and<br />
024 et alors?
adornment not usually associated with masculinity<br />
of Arab males. It confronts Western and Arab,<br />
Muslim perspectives of imposed male/masculine<br />
stereotypes, hetero-norm social expectations and<br />
cultural ideals.<br />
The inquiry and its ‘field work’ I engage in originated<br />
from the idea that the gender identity of Prophet<br />
Mohammed is conventionally regarded as the<br />
‘poster boy’ or perfect ideal of a Muslim and also<br />
of Arab, Muslim maleness. I have had an intimate<br />
relationship with Mohammed throughout my life,<br />
including ten years of researching him as a man: how<br />
he was and why he was the way he was, seeking the<br />
psychological and social discourse rather than fables<br />
to exult over and myths to preach about.<br />
Attributed quotes and teachings, the earliest and<br />
most reliable Islamic accounts and the Quran, forged<br />
together with insights from anthropological, social,<br />
economic, cultural and political contexts, formed<br />
an intricate sequence of time, events and persons.<br />
It introduced me to someone who, in most reports<br />
in Western media, is only known from the accounts<br />
of bearded men uneasy with modernity or through<br />
odious cries of extremists, creating an identity that<br />
most people in the West believe to be true while it is<br />
unfair and obscene to extremity.<br />
You adhere to the Japanese idea of Wabi Sabi.<br />
How does that reflect on your work?<br />
Conservative societies have a reputation of expecting<br />
how one should be: the perfect citizen, the perfect<br />
believer. Wabi Sabi represents a comprehensive<br />
Japanese world view or aesthetic centred on the<br />
acceptance of imperfection. Melancholy and other<br />
such pains, physical and beyond, go hand in hand<br />
with the ecstasy and bliss that are an integral part<br />
of my work. Many people feel diminished, unworthy<br />
and imperfect on account of physical or emotional<br />
scars, psychological trauma, mental issues, etc.<br />
Such things that have been considered to be<br />
imperfect require a revision of understanding. The<br />
idea is to elevate them from a state of imperfection,<br />
to an imperfection that has an alternative use, to<br />
being beautiful. Basically, this establishes fairness.<br />
Just like my work both contexts, narrative and<br />
aesthetics, seek mutual acceptance between<br />
Islam and the West, between the Arabs and Islam,<br />
between the Arabs and the West and of course Israel.<br />
Hopefully this acceptance will evolve in reality one<br />
day, but until then at least it can exist symbolically,<br />
politically and romantically through art.<br />
You grew up being gay and Muslim. What was it<br />
like?<br />
Being gay and Muslim didn’t affect me at all, my<br />
beliefs and sexuality do not conflict. Growing up in<br />
a Muslim country was a bit difficult but then again,<br />
also quite exciting.<br />
I understand gay identity isn’t the same in Arab<br />
countries as in the West. Can you tell me about<br />
this?<br />
That is a very complex, long discussion. I like the<br />
article available on the subject that is called ‘Re–<br />
Orientating Desire: The Gay International and The<br />
Arab World’. There are different rules in the ‘gay’<br />
world. Very strict codes on who is active and passive,<br />
which I challenged completely. As a slim boy with<br />
feminine sensibility the ‘rule’ was that I would be<br />
passive. I challenged this as I am active. In the West<br />
there is the lingering notion that the feminine is<br />
always passive; that idea is quite militant in Arab<br />
culture.<br />
Also, the active man is not necessarily considered<br />
gay; he is just fucking because that is what men do.<br />
Gay became an identity in Britain after the Oscar<br />
Wilde trials. Before that, it was just something<br />
you did as an act. There are many remains of this<br />
perception in the Arab world, which has a history<br />
of pederasty. It is different in regard to the idea of<br />
gay as an identity. Intimacy between persons of the<br />
same sex was a central aspect of Arabic culture but<br />
it has warped into something that is still undecided<br />
because of this identity issue. That is aggravated by<br />
cultures where queerness is still considered wrong.<br />
Future plans?<br />
I am currently in the process of writing proposals<br />
and bringing together ideas for an exhibition in<br />
London that would use objects from my family’s<br />
Islamic Collection in Kuwait, hopefully with some<br />
private ones in London. I want to show them along<br />
with contemporary art, side by side with object d’art<br />
artefacts and antiquities. It will be called Black Cube.<br />
The word ‘cube’ comes from Kaaba, the holiest site<br />
in Islam where Muslims face when they pray, in<br />
Mecca, Saudi Arabia.<br />
www.tareqdemontfort.com<br />
et alors? 027
the<br />
cabaret<br />
switch<br />
photos sin bozkurt<br />
When two of <strong>Et</strong> <strong>Alors</strong>?’s favorite artists<br />
decided to do a personae switch, a smile<br />
appeared on our faces. Queen of fetish<br />
cabaret and diva extraordinaire Marnie<br />
Scarlet, transformes into Mr. Pustra,<br />
Vaudeville’s Darkest Muse. We leave it<br />
up to them to tell you all about it.<br />
028 et alors?
030 et alors?
name marnie scarlet<br />
what getting under le pustra’s skin<br />
website www.scarlet-diva.com<br />
I have known Le Pustra for a number of years now and<br />
I have always valued and admired him as a person<br />
and a multi-faceted visual artist. We appreciate each<br />
other’s style which both compliments and contrasts.<br />
I love the inner strength of his various characters,<br />
the dark and melancholy aspects, as well as the<br />
beautifully executed make-ups and outfits. When<br />
Le Pustra approached me with the idea of a Cabaret<br />
Switch, I was honored and excited. We started<br />
laying out the plans and asked good friend and<br />
experienced Cabaret photographer, Sin Bozkurt to<br />
immortalize the project. We have both worked with<br />
Sin before and he understands both our characters<br />
very well. We decided to swap two of our Looks/<br />
Characters. We both have a pop-culture icon based<br />
act in our oeuvre: for Le Pustra that’s a phenomenal<br />
Klaus Nomi act, for me that’s a tribute to Marilyn<br />
Monroe in Warhol style. It was amazing to be<br />
transformed into le Pustra and to be transform by<br />
him in return. Quite spooky and magical. During<br />
the shoot we truly transformed into each other’s<br />
creations which was an amazing creative process.<br />
When some of the photos went up on our respective<br />
Facebook sites, it actually did cause confusion as to<br />
who was who, and what was going on. The reaction<br />
we wanted!<br />
032 et alors?
034 et alors?
name le pustra<br />
what wearing marnie scarlet’s (shiny) skin<br />
website www.mrpustra.com<br />
I approached Marnie regarding this concept in late<br />
2013 as there are so many similarities between our<br />
public personas. I thought it would be interesting to<br />
portray each other and see what happens. I really<br />
adore her visual style and skill as a latex designer and<br />
visual artist. Marnie was very happy to be involved<br />
and we decided on switching our ‘icon’ characters<br />
e.g. Klaus Nomi and Marilyn Monroe - both latex -<br />
and our signature ‘Marnie’ and ‘Le Pustra’ looks, e.g.<br />
the Pierrot clown and Rubber Dolly. Photographer<br />
Sin Bozkurt agreed immediately to be part of the<br />
project and we even used our favorite studio in<br />
London. I think it was quite tricky to do each other’s<br />
make-up and it was interesting to find out how well<br />
we knew our own faces. Yet doing our own face on<br />
someone else, was definitely a challenge. Marnie<br />
even made a latex outfit in my size to wear as her<br />
Rubber Dolly. How wonderful was that? Since she<br />
has let me keep it, there might be a chance you may<br />
spot a slightly larger Marnie running in the streets in<br />
the near future. I must confess how much I admire<br />
Miss Marnie for wearing her, sometimes restrictive,<br />
latex costumes. The amount of effort and thought<br />
she has put into those designs. I don’t know any<br />
other artist whose work is so detailed and so clever.<br />
Bravissima, Marnie! Collaboration between artists<br />
can be such a rewarding experience and Marnie<br />
is one of my most favorite people on the scene as<br />
she is just brimming with talent, color and energy.<br />
And she has a heart of latex gold. I would work<br />
with her any day and look forward to see how she<br />
evolves over the coming years. I expect nothing but<br />
greatness from the First Lady of Latex. It was a fun<br />
experience being someone else for a day.<br />
038 et alors?
ein<br />
vollenga<br />
part of the genderblender exhibition<br />
interview fleur pierets photos jonas lindström
You can call it ‘wearable sculpture’, if you<br />
really want to give it a name. Those who<br />
would like to look outside the box a bit<br />
might see an attractive work of art, dark yet<br />
extremely seductive. Whether he is a sculptor<br />
or a milliner, Rein Vollenga is a creative artist<br />
first and foremost, with a positive outlook on<br />
life and a healthy attitude towards success.<br />
What triggers you to make such unique wearable<br />
sculpture headpieces?<br />
From an early age, I love making objects and<br />
working with my hands. It surprises me and gives me<br />
satisfaction every day. This is the main reason why I<br />
create. My work is about fantasy and ambiguity and<br />
I hope to evoke something in the viewer’s mind that<br />
will trigger their imagination. Either good or bad.<br />
From where do you draw your inspiration?<br />
I collect objects in my immediate surroundings.<br />
I browse in supermarkets, party stores and I find<br />
things on the streets. I’m highly fascinated by<br />
objects that are mass-produced and have an organic<br />
or physical aesthetic like mannequins, packaging,<br />
car parts et cetera. Furthermore I’m interested in<br />
traditional craftsmanship. I love visiting museums<br />
of ancient, classical and primitive art. It’s great<br />
to see objects that have been made with love and<br />
dedication.<br />
You moved to Berlin. How does the city influence<br />
your work?<br />
I am very fortunate to live in a beautiful city full<br />
of history and art and to be surrounded by many<br />
creative an inspiring people like artists, musician<br />
performers and all kinds of free spirits. I have a lot<br />
of opportunities to experiment, collaborate and<br />
explore my creativity. Besides, as a gay man I don’t<br />
feel judged for my looks and sexuality. In Berlin I can<br />
be whoever I want to be.<br />
You are an artist, also working in fashion. How do<br />
you combine those two?<br />
There is no difference between the two in how<br />
I approach my work. The origin of my craft is<br />
sculpture. I just see art and fashion as different<br />
platforms to show my work. Because I don’t dismiss<br />
any platform, I can show my work in museums and<br />
galleries, in music videos, on the catwalk and on<br />
the internet. This gives me the opportunity to reach<br />
042 et alors?
‘Be dedicated to what you genuinely love to do in<br />
life, and don’t talk bullshit. My advice is to work<br />
hard. This will be rewarded in the long run.’<br />
people who don’t visit the - sometimes bourgeois<br />
and elitist - galleries and museums. It makes my<br />
work available to everyone. As art should be.<br />
I read in an interview that you find it very<br />
important to be true to yourself and others. Can<br />
you elaborate?<br />
Just be dedicated to what you genuinely love to do<br />
in life, and don’t talk bullshit. It is hard to pursue a<br />
career in art. As a young artist you might not be<br />
appreciated immediately. My advice is to work hard.<br />
This will be rewarded in the long run. People love to<br />
make a lot of fuss about nothing these days. Check<br />
the celebrity pages for instance. People are famous<br />
for being famous. Isn’t that hollow and sad? I would<br />
rather be recognized and appreciated for what I do.<br />
On your website you have two different categories:<br />
‘sculpture’ and ‘wearable’. Do ‘ordinary’ people<br />
actually wear your creations and who are your<br />
main customers?<br />
Ordinary is not in my dictionary. I create unique<br />
pieces so I mainly work on special projects with<br />
fashion brands, performance artists and musicians.<br />
Do you ever think of designing clothes?<br />
Not really, but this might be something for the future.<br />
I can imagine a collaboration with a fashion house.<br />
To create some ready-to-wear limited editions in the<br />
future. I’m mainly interested in the theatrical part of<br />
fashion shows.<br />
Your work has a dark, hedonistic and fetishistic<br />
feel to it. Is that your aim or just my imagination?<br />
No, that is not my aim but just your naughty<br />
imagination I guess. But I think you refer to the slick<br />
and glossy finish of my works. I do understand what<br />
you mean with the dark hedonistic and fetishistic<br />
feel but this only implicates what fashion presumes<br />
a fetish to be. Here’s what the dictionary says: ‘any<br />
object or non-genital part of the body that causes a<br />
habitual erotic response or fixation.’<br />
Your headpieces are – in my opinion – genderless.<br />
Is that a conscious choice?<br />
Yes, I don’t create pieces for a specific gender. I create<br />
my objects as an extension of the human body.<br />
You once said that you make a piece almost every<br />
day. Is this still the case and how do you keep up?<br />
Yes I still do. I work on several projects a day. But since<br />
the making of a sculpture has many stages, there’s<br />
always something to do. It might sound obsessive<br />
but it all comes natural to me.<br />
You had numerous collaborations with people<br />
like Mugler, Lady Gaga, Johnny Woo, etc. and you<br />
have been featured in Dazed and Confused, I-D,<br />
Interview and many other magazines. Any future<br />
dreams?<br />
Yes! I would love to create stage designs and<br />
costumes for opera, ballet or contemporary dance in<br />
the future.<br />
www.reinvollenga.com<br />
www.reinvollenga.blogspot.de<br />
et alors? 047
part of the genderblender exhibition<br />
name han hoogerbrugge<br />
location bikini island<br />
website www.hoogerbrugge.com<br />
Can you describe the work you are showing at MU<br />
Eindhoven in three lines?<br />
A work named: ‘Parade’. Showing a large procession,<br />
not including a marching band, of a festive nature.<br />
Held in honor of mankind.<br />
What is the genderblender angle?<br />
You will know it when you see the parade.<br />
Why this fascination when it comes to gender?<br />
Who said gender fascinates me?<br />
Future dreams?<br />
MOMA or die.<br />
048 et alors?
extravaganza<br />
interview fleur pierets photos extravaganza
Lars de Valk founded Extravaganza. The first<br />
extravagant bears, lesbians, muscle boys, club<br />
kids, drag queens, fag hags, fetish clubbers party<br />
with a positive vibe in Antwerp, Belgium.<br />
Bringing you happiness with themes such as Asian<br />
Persuasion, Sinners & Saints and The American<br />
Dream. With a crew of 20 performers styled<br />
by Harald Ligtvoet and a unique atmosphere,<br />
Extravaganza is by far one of the most positive<br />
and succeeded ‘be whoever you want to be’-<br />
parties we ever experienced so far. <strong>10</strong> reasons<br />
why we like the man behind the scenes.<br />
The beginning.<br />
I come out of fashion retail. A family business. When<br />
my parents retired I was out of a job and because<br />
I wanted to change the course of my life for yet a<br />
very long time, it was no disaster. I’m part of a<br />
theatre company and every time I was asked to do<br />
something creative, I flourished so I started thinking<br />
about something that gave me the same amount of<br />
satisfaction. I started thinking about an all-round<br />
party concept.<br />
The city.<br />
Antwerp was in need for a new party but it had to be<br />
good. It had to be a concept instead of once again<br />
another mainstream party. Since the inhabitants of<br />
Antwerp are quite highbrow, it had to be something<br />
that could resist the cynicism of the audience.<br />
The concept.<br />
I had the summer of my life – well, until now - in<br />
Provincetown. I was there during the carnival week<br />
and never experienced such a feeling of unanimity.<br />
From the most trashy transvestites to leather boys<br />
and from bears to lesbians. Everybody just accepted<br />
everyone for what they were, partying together at<br />
one and the same place. I wanted to capture that<br />
feeling of equality. It was unique.<br />
The atmosphere.<br />
I didn’t want an underground concept because those<br />
are numerous. I didn’t want anything that had to<br />
do with sex. Not on top of it. I’m aware of the fact<br />
that sex sells, especially in the gay scene, but I was<br />
in need of a place where you could be relaxed. A<br />
place where you could flirt without the pressure of<br />
052 et alors?
a darkroom around the corner. I wanted to create<br />
a fun and positive night. A place where people got<br />
swapped into a certain sphere in which there was<br />
no time for negativity.<br />
The music.<br />
When it comes to music I wanted something I<br />
heard in New York. No house, no techno, but old<br />
songs combined with contemporary beats. It’s a<br />
nice angle to start experimenting.<br />
The crew.<br />
We planned the first edition of Extravaganza in<br />
November and started preparations in September.<br />
I was looking for people to entertain, via Facebook,<br />
via people on the street, at parties. I talked to<br />
them out of nowhere. Asking if they wanted to be<br />
part of a new party concept. People seemed to be<br />
extremely enthousiastic. Then I met stylist Harald<br />
Ligtvoet who wanted to interpret my moodboard<br />
and was willing to ‘design’ all the entertainers. I’m<br />
so extremely gratefull for this group of people who<br />
are working around the clock on this concept.<br />
The slogan.<br />
I wanted to work in themes. People don’t have<br />
to dress up, but they are welcome to do so. Since<br />
I wanted to capture the feeling I experienced in<br />
Provincetown, I integrated the slogan: ‘Come as<br />
you are’. Whoever you are, you can be yourself.<br />
It’s not a gay party. Everybody is welcome. It’s a<br />
statement.<br />
The look.<br />
Decorating makes me happy. Setting a theme,<br />
making a mood board, talking it through with the<br />
team. I love it! It’s also great to be able to work in<br />
Het Felix Pakhuis because then you know what<br />
you are doing and how it’s going to look. We start<br />
decorating at 8 o’clock in the morning and the<br />
make-up and dressing of the entertainers starts at<br />
5. Its hard work but you know you will be in bed at<br />
8 the next day so you can set your state of mind.<br />
The production.<br />
It’s a lot of work and sometimes I think I’m having<br />
three jobs. I’m both graphic designer, organizer and<br />
manager. I wanted to do it myself. The marketing,<br />
the thinking, the counting. All the artwork and<br />
campaigns on top of the party organizing part. But<br />
it’s worth it. We have a full house, a happy crew and<br />
our visitors seem to like it very much.<br />
The future.<br />
You catch me at a moment of complete exhaustion<br />
as we just did the closing party at the Gay Pride<br />
Brussels. So we’re doing well. Next to our regular<br />
parties in Antwerp we were asked to also organize<br />
Extravaganza at other locations. We’re having a<br />
party at the Antwerp Pride in August and are going<br />
to The Netherlands for Milkshake festival. I’m<br />
a dreamer while standing with my 2 feet on the<br />
ground, but who knows what comes next. As for<br />
now: the future looks great!<br />
‘Rock The Casbah’ – Kick off party Antwerp Pride<br />
August 8th, 2014 – Felix Pakhuis<br />
www.extravaganza.com<br />
‘I integrated the<br />
slogan: ‘Come<br />
as you are’.<br />
Whoever you<br />
are, you can<br />
be yourself. It’s<br />
not a gay party.<br />
Everybody is<br />
welcome. It’s a<br />
statement.’<br />
et alors? 061
silvia b.<br />
part of the genderblender exhibition<br />
interview fleur pierets photos & artwork silvia b.
She affectionately calls them ‘my boys’, when<br />
she talks about her statues. A black and a<br />
white series of puppets that almost seem to<br />
come alive and that are created with a level of<br />
perfection that can only be understood as love.<br />
Some of them, with names like Thinker, Ira Jr.,<br />
Lord Rangda or Mors, are part of the series<br />
‘Les plus Beaux’, the most beautiful of them all.<br />
And that is what they are, strangely hovering<br />
between man and animal, transcending standard<br />
notions of beauty. In conversation with a most<br />
versatile and intriguing artist, Silvia B.<br />
All your statues are hybrids, age- and genderless<br />
yet existing in some perfect illusion. Highly<br />
attractive at first glance but disturbing at a<br />
closer look.<br />
I like to make my sculptures as beautiful as possible<br />
and I love them to be fluid. They are based on<br />
signs of our time. Stereotypes taken to the max.<br />
Not only regarding androgyny but also of genetic<br />
manipulation, cosmetic surgery. In this day and<br />
age you can become whomever you want to be<br />
or rather: whomever you have to be in order to fit<br />
in.I try to make my sculptures as beautiful as I can,<br />
just to arouse the viewers’ sense of duality. Attract<br />
them with craftsmanship but unsettle them on<br />
second look. Magnetism versus rejection. Not to<br />
mention doubt. I like the audience to be in doubt<br />
before they judge: that it’s not possible for them<br />
to instantly take a stand. For me it is important<br />
that you have to think about whether these<br />
creatures are beautiful or not and subsequently<br />
whether they are good or bad. Doubt is the basis<br />
of all thought and I like to advance that as a given.<br />
It is my vision on beauty; a kind of beauty that<br />
isn’t appreciated most of the time because there<br />
is always a dark side to it. Like film stills: you never<br />
know what is going to happen next.<br />
Your representations challenge not only our<br />
conceptions of normality in regard to beauty but<br />
also in respect of human behaviour.<br />
I have always been interested in human behaviour.<br />
We are still so very instinctive, aren’t we? Everything<br />
we do is based on our desires and our fears. When<br />
you see someone on the street who looks a bit<br />
different you instantly decide, within three seconds,<br />
whether you are going to make eye contact or not.<br />
Is the other person a winner or a loser? Do I want to<br />
connect or could that be dangerous? We still behave<br />
like herd animals and at the same time we think of<br />
ourselves as being some kind of super-beings.<br />
066 et alors?
‘The gloves are<br />
‘marked’ with what<br />
some people might<br />
call imperfections:<br />
freckles, scars,<br />
hairy moles or even<br />
a mutant-like extra<br />
thumb. Are they<br />
dissonances or signs<br />
of beauty?’<br />
Super-beings with the possibility to explore<br />
genetic manipulation, cosmetic surgery, artificial<br />
intelligence. Is that why you made ‘Almost<br />
Perfect’?<br />
This girl was sitting in my atelier for quite a long<br />
time. I found her while strolling around a flea<br />
marked. She was so weird: an old doll, an anorexic<br />
avant la lettre. I knew there was a statue inside of<br />
her but I wasn’t quite sure where she was going. She<br />
was my skinny teenager who didn’t know whether<br />
to fall in love with boys or with girls. I gave her all<br />
the opportunities an era of the makeable human has<br />
to offer; the endless growing possibilities of plastic<br />
surgery. Her skin is stitched together and I gave her<br />
fashionably oversized lips. She is self-conscious of<br />
her pubescent breasts and tiny penis. I offered her<br />
a choice to grow into whomever she wanted to be.<br />
And all of a sudden everything went black.<br />
Once again I was drifting on the tide of time. Business<br />
was going well but all of a sudden the crisis kicked<br />
in. People bought less art; they were more careful<br />
with their money and I had to jump into a new future<br />
without a parachute. That was quite confronting. My<br />
white series exists very much in the ‘here and now’.<br />
Little boys, decadent and aggressive yet charming<br />
and confident regarding their place in time.<br />
The black series, starting with ‘Les Bêtes Noires’, is<br />
different: more introvert, more me maybe. Most of<br />
them have their eyes closed. Not only to give the<br />
viewer the freedom to stare but also to express an<br />
aloofness that borders denial. I wanted to give them<br />
the possibility to shut out the rest of the world. To be<br />
self-assured and in no need of approval.<br />
You seem to have a huge fascination for the circus.<br />
My father always told me that they found me at the<br />
queue of a Russian parade. You are so weird, he said,<br />
you can’t be our child. So I kept on hoping the Tsar<br />
and Tsarina would come to get me and take me far<br />
away from these ordinary people. So who knows:<br />
maybe that is where this interest came from? I love<br />
the comical yet theatrical effect of the circus. Don’t<br />
you think it is strange that we find it funny when<br />
et alors? 069
people behave like animals and vice versa? We buy<br />
tickets and laugh at people who look displaced.<br />
And isn’t it weird that we decorate our homes and<br />
ourselves with – literally – someone else’s feathers.<br />
It is quite morbid to take pleasure in the remains<br />
of dead animals. We think that we are some kind<br />
of superhuman beings, that everything is there<br />
because of us. We use all species except our own -<br />
well, exceptions left aside.<br />
Children that are covered head-to-toe in hair are a<br />
constant factor in your work.<br />
Since time immemorial, extremely hairy people have<br />
been exhibited in traveling circuses so this inevitably<br />
lead to ‘Le Cirque’. A melancholic series of both<br />
children in fur and animals behaving like people. The<br />
atmosphere of those fancy fairs and the dubiously<br />
voluntary aspect of those shows made me choose<br />
to create them all in black. Fit for an environment<br />
where certain activities might not be suited to be<br />
exposed in broad daylight. The fact that everything<br />
is black forces you to concentrate on what you see,<br />
which strengthens the aspect of voyeurism.<br />
You are not only displaying your work, but people<br />
can actually wear it. Your Skinover elbow length<br />
gloves offer the possibility to brave the day in<br />
someone else’s skin.<br />
When I started to create ‘Almost Perfect’, I first made<br />
her hands and I was trying them on myself, feeling<br />
the touch of the lambskin leather. Afterwards I<br />
couldn’t forget the sensation of living in someone<br />
else’s skin, as if I were actually wearing her. So that<br />
is where it all started. And since I like to question our<br />
current concept of aesthetics, I involved someone<br />
else’s tattoos, someone else’s birth marks, scars:<br />
to explore the edge between what is beautiful and<br />
what is not. The gloves are ‘marked’ with what some<br />
people might call imperfections: freckles, scars,<br />
hairy moles or even a mutant-like extra thumb. Are<br />
they dissonances or signs of beauty? Is everything<br />
that deviates from the norm a priori bad, strange?<br />
A brown spot on the face of a young woman is<br />
called a beauty mark; on the face of an old lady it<br />
is considered a shrew’s wart. Understanding this<br />
makes mainstream thoughts regarding beauty very<br />
relative.<br />
et alors? 073
‘I love fashion<br />
because it is the<br />
only art form able to<br />
react very quickly on<br />
what is happening in<br />
the world. Fashion<br />
shows the way we<br />
are feeling in regard<br />
to politics or social<br />
issues.’<br />
Your work is closely related to fashion.<br />
I love fashion because it is the only art form able to<br />
react very quickly on what is happening in the world.<br />
Design, art and architecture for example, are much<br />
slower in their reflection. Fashion shows the way we<br />
are feeling in regard to politics or social issues. I was<br />
18 years old when punk made its entrance and at the<br />
time, there weren’t any punk clothes or jewellery<br />
available here in The Netherlands; I had to make<br />
everything myself. I found them to be very creative<br />
and productive times. The ideas of no tomorrow, no<br />
future, party every day and wear your most beautiful<br />
clothes, were very inspiring. Since there was no<br />
future you had to do everything Now: tomorrow<br />
might be too late. In a way it is what I am still doing.<br />
Customizing things, bringing all those dolls to my<br />
atelier to check if there are statues hidden inside. I<br />
still play with dolls, only now I get paid to do so.<br />
Inspiration is lifestyle?<br />
Yes. <strong>Magazine</strong>s, movies, human behaviour, how<br />
we succeed in society: all very inspirational but<br />
quite complicated. Life itself is quite complicated<br />
so I like it if certain things stay the same. For<br />
example, 20 years ago I chose to have this hairdo<br />
and I am not going to change it anymore. I like to<br />
wear black, it feels comfortable, I am not going to<br />
change it anymore. If I have to make decisions about<br />
everything, I wouldn’t be able to work so I make it<br />
simple. I choose to keep it simple.<br />
Leaves me nothing but to ask about your future<br />
plans. We have seen white, we have seen black.<br />
What else can we expect from a very versatile artist<br />
who wants to keep life simple?<br />
The future looks very exciting! I am heading towards<br />
a solo exhibition and I don’t have a clue what I am<br />
going to show. I want to make new work; start all<br />
over again. Long live the internet where I can check<br />
images from all over the world without leaving the<br />
comfort of my atelier. I’ll keep you posted!<br />
www.silvia-b.com<br />
www.skinover.biz<br />
et alors? 075
part of the genderblender exhibition<br />
name gabriel maher<br />
location the netherlands<br />
Can you describe the work you are showing at MU<br />
Eindhoven in three lines?<br />
This work implicates the ‘world of design’ in the<br />
sociocultural construction of gender. It explores how<br />
mechanisms of design (objects, clothing, space)<br />
have been shaping our behaviour in gendered<br />
ways. How can we reshape it? The work is a hybrid<br />
between performance and installation.<br />
What is the genderblender angle?<br />
This is about composition. Gender is composed,<br />
designed and framed. Deconstructing established<br />
concepts of gender enables a composition of our<br />
own making. The work is inspired by a process of<br />
dismantling and rebuilding. This process is applied<br />
to gender because its structures have also been<br />
built. We become architects of our bodies and<br />
designers of our identities. We merge, we blend, we<br />
cross and conjoin the separations that exist in binary<br />
understandings of gender.<br />
Why this fascination when it comes to gender?<br />
I have a fascination with codes (dress codes, moral<br />
codes, behavioural codes etc.) that have<br />
been assigned a gendered meaning; it intrigues<br />
me profoundly to mess about with these codes.<br />
Compose them, recompose and juxtapose them. I<br />
love how this mixing can produce different meanings<br />
while questioning established ones.<br />
Future dreams?<br />
Such a nice question: I dream about unusual<br />
compositions of human behaviour. Making the<br />
strange seem familiar and the familiar seem strange.<br />
076 et alors?
pyuupiru<br />
part of the genderblender exhibition<br />
interview fleur pierets artwork pyuupiru<br />
ET et ALORS? alors? 079
‘I can never create work that lies.’ With those<br />
words Japanese visual artist Pyuupiru captures<br />
exactly the sensation an audience experiences<br />
when looking at her work. Starting off as a creator<br />
of eccentric costumes designed as clubwear that<br />
distorted her figure, Pyuupiru soon evolved into<br />
being a creation herself, documenting the struggles<br />
that came with her transformation from a male<br />
to a female body. An exploration of physical and<br />
psychological transformation that lead to the ‘Selfportrait<br />
Series’: a photographic work, created<br />
over several years, that documents the artist’s<br />
experience of sex reassignment surgery in a more<br />
than emotional and empathic way. As a spectator<br />
you are taken on a genuine and true voyage under<br />
the artist’s skin, leaving you behind with the hope<br />
that Pyuupiru will once become a very happy girl.<br />
Your work is based on delusions and obsessions. Is this<br />
on a personal level?<br />
Yes, only on a personal level since my body is the core of<br />
my work.<br />
The ‘Self-portrait Series’ explores physical and<br />
psychological transformation. How did you find your<br />
form, your language, to express those series?<br />
The work portrays images occurring in my mind. My<br />
personal memory of boyhood, nightmares caused by<br />
hormone replacement therapy and psychoactive drugs,<br />
and ideal self-image. All these elements combined<br />
resulted in my ‘Self-portrait Series’. Yet the final images<br />
were envisioned without any logic. They just happened.<br />
How important is the concept of gender to you? Both as<br />
an artist and on a personal level?<br />
I am an artist and an individual person at the same time.<br />
I can only be me. Basically my opinion on gender comes<br />
from my personal experience and struggle, so it remains<br />
the same in both circumstances. I am unintentionally<br />
projecting my opinion on gender onto my artwork yet I<br />
find it wonderful if my work triggers other people to face<br />
themselves sincerely.<br />
When and why did you decide to fully go for sex reassignment<br />
surgery?<br />
It was in July 2007. I ended my one-way love for a straight<br />
man, an experience that made me decide to get sex<br />
reassignment surgery. I was into hormone replacement<br />
therapy and castration since 2003. So already sexually<br />
neutral. Looking back, I can say the decision for sex<br />
reassignment surgery didn’t come out of the blue but<br />
was rather a part of the process that I was gradually going<br />
through.<br />
Your images are quite aggressive. Can you tell me why?<br />
I hated the consciousness of my own body and gender.<br />
I like strong expressions because I am mentally weak.<br />
What do you want your spectators to see/feel/<br />
experience?<br />
080 et alors?
‘My work portrays<br />
images occurring in<br />
my mind. My personal<br />
memory of boyhood,<br />
nightmares caused by<br />
hormone replacement<br />
therapy and psychoactive<br />
drugs, and ideal<br />
self-image. All these<br />
elements combined<br />
resulted in my Selfportrait<br />
Series.’<br />
I want my viewers to see and feel something beyond<br />
shapes, forms and visual elements. In other words, I want<br />
them to experience the spirit living in my artwork, to feel<br />
afresh when leaving the gallery.<br />
You also do performances. What are you aiming for?<br />
I try to create performances that confront the audience<br />
with momentarily power, beat, energy, atmosphere,<br />
unexpectedness and spontaneity. I don’t impose any<br />
opinion on the spectators. It is up to them what they<br />
want to feel. I can only think of the phrase ‘wholeness of<br />
existence’ to describe my performance work.<br />
You started off designing wild, handmade costumes.<br />
You evolved into physical metamorphosis. Is this - for<br />
you - a logical evolution?<br />
Yes. As time goes by, we grow both qualitatively and<br />
quantitatively; expanding our capacity. We continue<br />
to add various elements and new points of view to our<br />
personality, until we are like a bunch of grapes. I think this<br />
is the life of people from birth to death.<br />
Future dreams and plans?<br />
I am participating in exhibitions in Europe from this spring<br />
to autumn. The exhibitions will be in Sweden, Denmark<br />
and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Holland. For the<br />
future, I dream of living in beautiful nature surrounded<br />
by many cats, spending all day knitting in a rocking chair<br />
beside a fireplace. However, before I reach that point,<br />
I must create an artwork that will remain unique for<br />
generations. This might take an immeasurable period of<br />
time.<br />
www.pyuupiru.com<br />
et alors? 085
sven<br />
ratzke<br />
part of the genderblender exhibition<br />
interview fleur pierets photos dennis veldman<br />
et alors? 087
Hovering between vaudeville and jazzy chansons,<br />
conference and cabaret; playing for full houses<br />
in New York, Berlin, Zürich and London (just to<br />
name a few cities), Sven Ratzke is not easily<br />
captured in a few words. Describing him as a<br />
classy performer and an intelligent improviser<br />
dressed in eccentric costumes, with a strong<br />
scent of Berlin nightclub cabaret, might be a<br />
start. We leave it up to him to clear things up.<br />
What makes it so difficult to describe Sven Ratzke?<br />
I do so many different things that it might be difficult<br />
to categorise, to place in a box. People often have to<br />
actually see the show to know what it is all about. I<br />
am not an easy act for the program leaflets. I always<br />
say I like to flirt with the 1920’s vaudeville, that kind<br />
of popular improvisation theatre with its interesting<br />
mix of songs and comedy conference. The idea that<br />
once you are on stage, anything is possible. And yes,<br />
maybe it isn’t easy to capture my performances in<br />
one word, but then again: I am not a big fan of all<br />
those boxes. They might be convenient sometimes,<br />
but not for me. As a consequence it remains a bit<br />
elusive and it takes much more time to bring it<br />
across to the audience.<br />
Do you really think it takes a lot of time?<br />
Let’s say it took me a while before I defined my<br />
genre as a performer. I am not the kind of cabaret<br />
artist that comes straight from the academy. I am<br />
a ‘learning by doing’ kind of person. Learning by<br />
traveling the world. It is a very personal approach<br />
and finding my form was quite a journey.<br />
I was raised in an old hippy convent where I<br />
performed in front of all the adults. Ever since I<br />
was a kid, it was obvious that I was going to be on<br />
stage but when I went to an actor’s studio, I hated<br />
it. I wanted to make my own pieces so I started off in<br />
theatre but soon, I switched radically to performing<br />
songs by Fassbinder, Brecht and Weill. I loved and<br />
still love those three-minute mini dramas so it was a<br />
very logical step to take. Of course the performance<br />
still lacked identity but it was a good start. Soon<br />
after that, I found myself in the Berlin scene with<br />
people like Georgette Dee. I was standing barefoot<br />
on stage because I didn’t have the money to buy the<br />
shoes I really liked.<br />
And now you are performing all over the world.<br />
088 et alors?
Sometimes I wonder: when did that happen? I realise<br />
that I have to be more aware of the great life I am<br />
living. On the other hand, you still need to keep on<br />
working. As an artist you never reach a point where<br />
you can say: ‘that’s it’. You lose things very easily and<br />
you have to keep on evolving. The more fame, the<br />
more misery! How is that for a quote?<br />
Since last year you have been playing ‘Hedwig and<br />
the Angry Inch’ in Berlin and now the show is coming<br />
to The Netherlands.<br />
I don’t see myself as an actor but when they asked<br />
me to play Hedwig, it was too beautiful a role to<br />
just let go. It is a theatre play about Hedwig, born<br />
a boy named Hansel in East Berlin, who fell in love<br />
with an American G.I. and underwent a sex-change<br />
operation in order to marry him and flee to the West.<br />
Unfortunately, nothing worked out quite as planned<br />
and years later, Hedwig is touring the US with her<br />
rock band, telling her life story through a series of<br />
concerts. I made the play my own by doing a large<br />
part of the re-writing and making a new German<br />
translation. Apart from the music band it is a oneman<br />
show in which I perform all the characters.<br />
Do you relate to such a character?<br />
Hedwig doesn’t belong and I very much relate to<br />
that. I always wanted to play something different,<br />
something extreme. Hedwig is neither man nor<br />
woman. She is very in-between. That raises many<br />
questions and for some people it is troubling, for<br />
others it is like a warm bath. Yet it is a universal piece<br />
about someone looking for her other half. Besides<br />
that, I always dreamed of playing a woman. To<br />
physically undergo that transformation and look at<br />
the possibilities as an entertainer. As a woman, you<br />
have many more possibilities then when you are<br />
a man. When I place my foot on the table, all of a<br />
sudden that is seductive instead of tough. Since I<br />
have been playing that part, I noticed I want more<br />
of the same. I want to explore the transformational<br />
side of me.<br />
Yet you don’t define yourself as an actor.<br />
No, and that is because I am quite obstinate and I<br />
have a lot of ideas. I always thought that being an<br />
actor was something very creative. That you are<br />
creating something at least. But you are still at<br />
the service of others. That is why there is so much<br />
of myself in Hedwig: she could be my sister, so to<br />
speak. It is my energy. Even if I would play, for<br />
example, a joker or a Nazi, it would still be me.<br />
Back to the creations that are entirely your own.<br />
I guess it isn’t easy to switch from Hedwig to an<br />
entirely different performance.<br />
One week, I play Hedwig and the other I play my own<br />
shows. So switching from one gender to another is<br />
indeed a duality that needs focus. But I also switch<br />
between playing in sold out concert halls in New<br />
York and small villages in The Netherlands. As a<br />
performer you have to be flexible in your response to<br />
et alors? 091
‘When I arrive<br />
somewhere<br />
and things are<br />
not arranged<br />
properly, I just<br />
go home. Does<br />
that make<br />
you a diva?<br />
No, it is being<br />
professional.’<br />
the audience. The US for example is very different<br />
from Berlin. In Berlin the audience reacts like they<br />
have already seen it all. In New York they say: ‘give<br />
it to me baby’. So you give it to them! That is an<br />
entirely different atmosphere and as an entertainer<br />
you have to be able to anticipate. You have to find a<br />
form you are comfortable with and that is versatile<br />
enough to reach the largest possible audience.<br />
The press talks about you in terms of ‘the<br />
unparalleled sex bomb of German variety’ and ‘an<br />
artistic phenomenon that continues to surprise’.<br />
Are you becoming a diva because of all these<br />
superlatives, Sven?<br />
Of course I am! I love divas! Diva behaviour<br />
isn’t a negative thing, you know. When you are<br />
misbehaving, you are called a Prima Donna. A diva<br />
is someone who gives everything and expects the<br />
same from you. When I arrive somewhere and things<br />
are not arranged properly, I just go home. Does that<br />
make you a diva? No, it is being professional.<br />
Nowadays there are no divas anymore. Everybody<br />
is approachable and I really don’t like the fact that<br />
everyone’s life is out in the open. I like a bit of magic.<br />
Take Marlene Dietrich for example. She dressed in a<br />
suit, smoked cigarettes and – allegedly – had affairs<br />
with both men and women. She was androgynous,<br />
not because she thought it was progressive but<br />
because some things just are what they are. In<br />
contrast to the present time in which everything<br />
we do is public, she was very mysterious. Of course<br />
that added to the image.<br />
You are a nostalgic person.<br />
I do have a tendency for nostalgia. I can get very sad<br />
about lost grandeur but I love classiness mixed with<br />
street credibility. Even though I will never perform<br />
in a T-shirt and like my glitter, I am still one of the<br />
common people. I like playing in clubs, very close<br />
and intimate.<br />
You said earlier that you are stubborn, that you<br />
want to decide everything yourself. How does<br />
that work?<br />
With every project, I insist on my own crew. My<br />
own musicians, photographers, technicians, you<br />
name it. Even in the shows, during encounters with<br />
wonderful artists like soprano Claron McFadden<br />
or Nina Hagen, I am the producer. I like my<br />
independence and I don’t want an agent to tell me<br />
what to do or where to play. I intend to keep it that<br />
way because even as an artist, I have a strategy<br />
to continue growing. You have to keep a close eye<br />
on yourself if you want to stay fresh. If you move<br />
between a sad song and wild hilarity, you have to<br />
be focused. It still has to be authentic. So although<br />
performing is an addiction, I still want to be in<br />
control and keep all my options open. Luckily the<br />
world is full of opportunities!<br />
www.sven-ratzke.com
part of the genderblender exhibition<br />
name antoine timmermans aka cybersissy<br />
location tilburg, the netherlands<br />
website www.ongekendtalent.nl/cybersissy<br />
Can you describe the work you are showing at MU<br />
Eindhoven in three lines?<br />
It is what I call ‘recycled glamour’. It combines both<br />
new and recycled materials from my hometown<br />
recycle shop. The creation’s richness comes from<br />
taking a long time to create intuitively.<br />
What is the genderblender angle?<br />
To me, gender blending is like playing with Lego. As a<br />
ten-year-old, I did my first transvestite performance<br />
at school. Never saw a problem with it myself, still<br />
don’t. But it disturbs me that others do. Society<br />
pushes you towards total prostitution in order to<br />
survive, so I created a virtual prostitute. Both as a<br />
mirror and as a survival strategy.<br />
Why this fascination when it comes to gender?<br />
It is simply there. I don’t question it, I celebrate it. It<br />
makes me feel free.<br />
Future dreams?<br />
Many! I would love to design and create an attraction<br />
at fantasyland and family park De Efteling in The<br />
Netherlands.<br />
094 et alors?
in<br />
conversation<br />
with<br />
jantien<br />
seeuws<br />
interview nora van craen photos hannah vleugels
BDSM stands for Bondage/Discipline/Dominance/<br />
Submissiveness/Sadism/Masochism. People who<br />
practice BDSM are usually into sexually dominating<br />
their partner or into being dominated, immobilizing<br />
someone by bondage or other techniques, roleplaying<br />
between Master and submissive, fetishes,<br />
and so on. The interpersonal dynamics of such a<br />
relationship are often overlooked by outsiders. Pain<br />
is not necessarily a part of BDSM but is crucial<br />
to sadomasochists, who are just one subgroup of<br />
the entire BDSM population. In conversation with<br />
Jantien Seeuws, psychologist, about her master’s<br />
thesis on BDSM in the Flanders area.<br />
In general, what are the main results of your<br />
research?<br />
The most important thing is that people who<br />
practice BDSM are not ready to be open and<br />
honest about their preferences, because they are<br />
afraid of being discriminated. I have heard stories<br />
of participants who were rejected by their health<br />
care professional or redirected to another one due<br />
to their BDSM fantasies. This has got to change.<br />
Secondly, half of the participants in my research<br />
experience BDSM as an orientation, not simply<br />
as a sexual preference. For most people, BDSM is<br />
an essential part of their identity. Finally, taboos<br />
exist even within the BDSM scene itself. Certain<br />
fetishes, for example, are seldomly talked about.<br />
Furthermore, some practitioners try to fill in how a<br />
particular D/s (Dominant-submissive) relationship<br />
ought to be, disagreeing with ideas that do not fit<br />
their own. Such a relationship is unique to every<br />
couple, though. Also, people question the fact<br />
whether ‘Switches’ truly exist. Being a Switch<br />
means that you can enjoy both the submissive and<br />
the dominant role. According to some, Switches<br />
still have to discover their true identity or even<br />
worse: they might be faking their whole lifestyle.<br />
Assumptions such as these can be quite humiliating<br />
for people who consider themselves to be Switch.<br />
Was there a specific moment during your research<br />
when you suddenly realized that BDSM is not as<br />
weird as people think it is?<br />
Yes: the first time I attended one of JongBDSM’s<br />
parties. I imagined the party would look like a<br />
swingers’ evening, an orgy or a torture basement. It<br />
seemed a lot more normal than I thought it would<br />
be. When I came in, I saw people drinking and<br />
talking as if they were sitting in a bar, and a few<br />
couples were playing. The atmosphere was peaceful<br />
and trustful, not sexually charged at all. The visitors<br />
didn’t just talk about sex but about everyday life as<br />
098 et alors?
well. I have never seen penetration take place at a<br />
public BDSM event. Sexual acts take place at private<br />
parties, which people can organize by renting the<br />
Fetish Cafe’s basement in Antwerp, for example.<br />
Could you describe a prototypical BDSM practitioner<br />
to me?<br />
They are people just like you and me. A typical<br />
profile does not exist. They can be students or<br />
have all different kinds of jobs. Every fetishist,<br />
sadist, submissive, is someone’s child, someone’s<br />
grandparent, parent or colleague. The saleswoman<br />
at the nearby grocery store or one’s hairdresser,<br />
men and women with whichever orientation or<br />
gender identity, can be into BDSM.<br />
Your master’s thesis is permeated with psychoanalysis.<br />
What does psychoanalysis have to say<br />
about BDSM?<br />
Psychoanalysis describes three main personality<br />
structures, referring to the relationships people<br />
have with others. The first structure, Neurosis,<br />
encompasses ‘normal’ people, but also the ones<br />
who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder or<br />
hysteria. Secondly, there is the Psychotic Structure,<br />
which is often characterized by deviated, noticeable<br />
symptoms like hallucinations and delusions, but<br />
could also be diagnosed based on affective, cognitive<br />
and behavioral changes. Thirdly, if one thinks of<br />
perverted people, one spontaneously imagines<br />
someone who does sexually outrageous things. In<br />
psychoanalysis however, one will not immediately<br />
receive the diagnosis of having a Perverse Structure,<br />
if one experiences deviant fantasies or relationships.<br />
In contrast, someone with a perverse structure will<br />
inevitably sense fear and tension when reality does<br />
not correspond with his or her imagination. A past<br />
trauma twisted into a perverse scene in the present,<br />
which creates excitement, becomes a rigid perverse<br />
ritual. A sense of power is typical of these patients<br />
et alors? 099
as well, and is not just limited to sexual acts. Also,<br />
by glorifying his theory, the pervert will tell us how<br />
we can achieve ultimate satisfaction, like Marquis de<br />
Sade did. So, the view of psychoanalysis is that an<br />
inclination to BDSM can occur in every one of these<br />
three structures. Personally I wanted to explore<br />
whether my participants are neurotics with perverse<br />
preferences, having the most normal structure<br />
possible, or rather people with a perverted structure,<br />
being the most deviated structure? My conclusion<br />
is that my sample mainly consists of neurotics<br />
with perverse preferences, instead of those with a<br />
perverse structure.<br />
Can you tell me something about having perverted<br />
likings while having a neurotic structure?<br />
In 1920, Freud discussed that sadism can be<br />
part of a very conventional, heteronormative<br />
sexual relationship, meaning that there is a bit of<br />
sadomasochism in all of us. There could be a big<br />
difference between having the perverse structure<br />
and having deviant BDSM-tinged fantasies.<br />
Is it true that pain and pleasure are processed by<br />
the brain in the same way?<br />
If we receive pain signals from the thalamus in our<br />
brains, adrenaline is being released. If we experience<br />
a sense of thrill at the same time, it is called an<br />
adrenaline rush. Businessmen or athletes may<br />
experience this thrill as frequently as BDSM lovers<br />
do. At the same time, pain releases endorphins,<br />
which have the ability to make us feel totally relaxed.<br />
This also happens when we experience orgasms.<br />
The systems in our brains process pain, rewards and<br />
pleasurable actions all in a similar manner, so they<br />
can easily be linked to one another by a conditioning<br />
process.<br />
So, the pain is experienced as pleasant because<br />
of the repeated association with sexual arousal.<br />
Pavlov could have submitted his dogs to such an<br />
experiment…<br />
Yes… For example, someone who is being whipped<br />
while stimulated by a vibrator could automatically<br />
create a positive association between these two<br />
stimuli.<br />
Were your participants willing to help you with<br />
your research?<br />
Not immediately, but that seems self-evident<br />
‘In 1920, Freud<br />
discussed that<br />
sadism can be<br />
part of a very<br />
conventional,<br />
heteronormative<br />
sexual relationship,<br />
meaning that<br />
there is a bit of<br />
sadomasochism in<br />
all of us.’<br />
to me. The world of BDSM has been invaded<br />
numerous times by researchers or journalists<br />
who merely wanted to create dramatic articles<br />
and documentaries based on nothing other than<br />
prejudices and overall ignorance. So in the beginning<br />
I was looked at with suspicion. But after I had won<br />
Kajira’s and then JongBDSM’s trust - both BDSM<br />
associations for adolescents and young adults - I<br />
moved on to the older generation. People finally<br />
started to trust me and my intentions.<br />
In the beginning they may have thought: ‘That<br />
psychologist probably wants to figure out what<br />
went wrong with us.’<br />
Study us like monkeys in the zoo, having a paraphilia,<br />
sexual deviation,… I guess that was what they<br />
thought, and I really get that.<br />
What exactly is holding them back to ‘out’<br />
themselves?<br />
I think the biggest reason is that they - especially<br />
the dominants and sadists – are afraid to be seen<br />
as aggressors, while BDSM and violence have<br />
absolutely nothing to do with each other. In the<br />
BDSM context, it involves people who voluntarily<br />
agree to sadomasochism. One cannot compare<br />
this to a scene in which someone is being tortured<br />
et alors? <strong>10</strong>1
or raped against his or her will. When someone is<br />
being beaten, you immediately think of violence.<br />
Straightaway, the actor is assumed to be the bad<br />
guy.<br />
While one’s wife often begs for it. Or one’s<br />
husband. It is such a cliché that a man is inflicting<br />
pain upon a woman instead of the other way<br />
around.<br />
Everything is possible.<br />
Even among women, among men...<br />
Certainly. Prejudiced people immediately form a<br />
visual of what happens at a BDSM meeting, but<br />
can be completely wrong. For example, I saw a<br />
very heterosexual looking man walking around in<br />
high heels. One might think that he is a fetishist<br />
who has nothing to do with BDSM, but he could<br />
also be a transgender or transvestite showing his<br />
true self only at these meetings. He could also be<br />
a submissive who’s is über-male but following his<br />
mistress’ or master’s order to wear heels the entire<br />
evening. The same is seen in sadomasochism: if<br />
someone is being hurt, this person could either be<br />
a submissive or he or she could be a masochist who<br />
is not even into dominance or submission. Yet it may<br />
also be a Dominant who has masochistic feelings<br />
once in a while. One should not immediately judge<br />
but instead talk to the people involved.<br />
What could BDSM practitioners do to improve the<br />
overall societal acceptance of this lifestyle? Speak<br />
up?<br />
Not everyone has the need to ‘out’ themselves but<br />
for some it is important to enlarge the discussion.<br />
Also, they should be able to rely on health care<br />
professionals. Much more information ought to<br />
be provided, starting with websites spreading<br />
information about BDSM in a non-sensational way.<br />
So psychologists are to a large extent responsible<br />
for informing our society about this?<br />
Yes. There are still many professionals who do not<br />
really understand BDSM. BDSM should be discussed<br />
in as many life domains as possible, with as many<br />
groups as possible and in the first place with mental<br />
health care workers. Sensoa (a Flemish expertise<br />
center for sexual health) recently published an<br />
interview with me on their website. This way,<br />
information reaches young people as well, which I<br />
think is a very good start.<br />
‘The systems in<br />
our brains process<br />
pain, rewards and<br />
pleasurable actions<br />
all in a similar<br />
manner, so they<br />
can easily be linked<br />
to one another<br />
by a conditioning<br />
process.’<br />
Why the strong link between mental health care<br />
if you believe BDSM is not necessarily unhealthy?<br />
Research suggests that BDSM is not necessarily an<br />
expression of underlying psychopathology. Half of<br />
my respondents reported having consulted health<br />
care at least once because of psychological problems,<br />
but their question mainly comprised the process of<br />
acceptance of their BDSM feelings, as well as the<br />
exploration of their absolute limits: ‘Sometimes I<br />
wonder how far I will go in extreme masochism’, and<br />
the disapproval of BDSM by society and their personal<br />
social environment. It is psychologically problematic,<br />
however, to people who experience BDSM as a<br />
compulsive need which must be met in order to<br />
get excited, and whose desires have a negative<br />
impact on their personal, social and/or professional<br />
performances. Where can one go to with questions<br />
about deviant behaviors and feelings when even<br />
psychologists or doctors prefer to avoid these issues?<br />
<strong>10</strong>2 et alors?
Does the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ hype actually<br />
contribute to the normalization of the BDSM<br />
image?<br />
It sets some topics open to discussion. However,<br />
the hype displays a very cliché story of the rich<br />
successful Master and a submissive young lady<br />
who had a traumatic childhood. Firstly, my results<br />
show there were only 5 out of 88 participants<br />
who had been sexually abused in their childhood.<br />
Secondly, many people who have been sexually<br />
abused never develop a BDSM orientation. BDSM<br />
is being depicted very poorly, especially by the<br />
media. It is often dragged into police series to<br />
stir things up, while aspects such as love, trust,<br />
openness, psychological relationships and<br />
freedom, are rarely included into the story. It<br />
makes many people continue to stick with the<br />
idea that BDSM is abusive and merely based on<br />
lust.<br />
The final question: What did you really like about<br />
your research?<br />
My research has made me a much better<br />
psychologist. It faced me with intense psychology<br />
in practice and the challenges that come with<br />
it. Given the taboo surrounding this issue and<br />
previous negative experiences with journalists and<br />
researchers, it was not always easy to get a foot in the<br />
door of the world of BDSM. Patience, an open mind,<br />
unbiased listening and empathy are necessary, but<br />
also knowing how to keep your distance. The most<br />
valuable lesson I learned actually comes down to<br />
Lacan’s quote: ‘Gardez-vous de comprendre’. What<br />
one sees or hears is after all only a snapshot of a<br />
person’s entire life. These insights are useful in my<br />
work as a psychologist in Gerechtelijk Opgelegde<br />
Hulp (Imposed Judicial Assistance), where I work<br />
with all kinds of perpetrators who receive mandatory<br />
counseling.<br />
et alors? <strong>10</strong>3
part of the genderblender exhibition<br />
name hannah honeywill<br />
location birmingham, england<br />
website www.hannahhoneywill.co.uk<br />
Can you describe the work you are showing at MU<br />
Eindhoven in three lines?<br />
A 12-meter drawing of a vertebrate. On closer<br />
inspection it contains other organs like a mouth,<br />
genitalia, feet, reproductive system, ribs, shoulder<br />
blades, eyes and more. All blended into the surface<br />
of the bone. I also show a queered anatomical<br />
drawing of a lesbian hand and a queered edition of<br />
Gray’s anatomy textbook.<br />
What is the genderblender angle?<br />
The work looks to unfold, confuse and disorientate<br />
from the expected. It is important that it retains<br />
its undecide-ability. The work allows for the<br />
re-categorising, re-occupying, re-owning,<br />
protecting and rejecting of anatomy and gender.<br />
Why this fascination when it comes to gender?<br />
During my research into Queer Theory I became<br />
aware of how gender has remained a defining<br />
feature in our social, economic and political lives.<br />
I am fascinated and excited by the possibilities<br />
queer theory offers to expand our horizons and<br />
understanding of gender. The concept of erasing<br />
gender completely is mind blowing, exciting and<br />
revolutionary!<br />
Future dreams?<br />
For the gender revolution to happen and to live in a<br />
non-gendered world!<br />
<strong>10</strong>4 et alors?
matthijs<br />
holland<br />
part of the genderblender exhibition<br />
interview fleur pierets photos matthijs holland<br />
et alors? <strong>10</strong>7
What do historic figures like Hatshepsut,<br />
Pope Joan, Segawa Kikunojo III,<br />
Henry III of France and Charlotte von<br />
Mahlsdorf have in common? Visual artist<br />
Matthijs Holland told us all about it.<br />
Do tell!<br />
I wanted to create a photo project based on freedom and<br />
tolerance regarding gender. First I had my sight on the<br />
future, thinking about an ideal world and how wonderful<br />
it would be if the concept of gender would no longer<br />
be based on any norm or definition. When I decided to<br />
look at the past first in order to understand the future,<br />
I found many historical figures who disregarded social<br />
conventions. They broke with the socially imposed norms<br />
of their days. None of these figures from the past fit the<br />
role that was created for them. They could not conform<br />
to the restrictions they encountered and broke free from<br />
them. They show us that questioning gender doesn’t<br />
specifically belongs to our culture: it is of all times. It has<br />
always been there. The norm in regard to gender is much<br />
too limited and unrealistic.<br />
Can you explain your vision on gender?<br />
Each sex is enclosed by a strict socially imposed norm.<br />
Masculinity belongs to the man and femininity to the<br />
woman. Anything that falls outside either category does<br />
not belong to the majority and is unfamiliar territory. The<br />
unknown doesn’t fit in the social straitjacket and can’t be<br />
easily understood anymore. Because of that, it causes<br />
fear and rejection by a large number of people. Dominant<br />
women are attacked for their lack of femininity and<br />
sensitive men are not considered to be ‘real’ men. People<br />
whose gender role doesn’t fit the socially imposed norm<br />
have to justify themselves to society. However, between<br />
the stereotypical man and the stereotypical woman lies<br />
a broad spectrum where they gradually blend together<br />
and fall outside of the norm.<br />
So you made a work of art to address these issues.<br />
I searched for a strong basis to tell those stories. I<br />
looked at history and brought these historical figures<br />
into the present because gender is a universal theme of<br />
all times. It is very close to me as a person and a visual<br />
communicator.<br />
The series is called NormAll.<br />
I have the strong opinion that ‘everything’ should be<br />
<strong>10</strong>8 et alors?
‘It is my idea that<br />
gender is a flexible<br />
state, evolving<br />
constantly and moving<br />
like a wave. Dependent<br />
on the phase you are<br />
going through.’<br />
the norm. Then words like ‘norm’ and ‘normal’ wouldn’t<br />
exist. The man/woman norm is very limited so I called it<br />
NormAll.<br />
Who are the people in the series?<br />
The timeline of portraits shows five inspiring people<br />
who each in their own way could not conform to the<br />
predominant expectations. Hatshepsut, who did the<br />
unthinkable in a male-dominated world and crowned<br />
herself pharaoh. Pope Joan who, by disguising herself as<br />
a man, could escape the female straitjacket of the Middle<br />
Ages and was acknowledged for her talents. The Japanese<br />
actor Segawa Kikunojo III, who was so feminine that he<br />
became the role model for geishas. And Henry III of France<br />
and Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who each in their own time<br />
chose to step outside of the expected gender roles to truly<br />
be themselves.<br />
You chose to make self-portraits, dressed as those five<br />
people. Why?<br />
During my research, I read a lot of books by Judith Butler<br />
in which she writes about performativity. She asserts that<br />
‘Gender is an impersonation and becoming gendered<br />
involves impersonating an ideal that nobody actually<br />
inhabits’. Gender is an ongoing, evolving element that<br />
isn’t determined at birth. By considering myself a blanc<br />
canvas I was receptive to assume the role of those<br />
historical figures. To be entirely honest I must say that Ru<br />
Paul’s ‘Drag Race’ was also very inspiring on the concept<br />
of transformation.<br />
What conclusion did you arrive at from studying both<br />
past and present?<br />
It is my idea that gender is a flexible state, evolving<br />
constantly and moving like a wave. Dependent on the<br />
phase you are going through. At times you give your male<br />
side more space, at times you are more in touch with your<br />
feminine side. When it comes to sexuality - and I don’t<br />
confuse gender with sexuality - people are more fluid. I<br />
see it as a percentage. Some are more hetero or gay than<br />
others.<br />
When we are talking about conclusions from studying the<br />
past, let’s be fair: where do we stand when it comes to<br />
gender in the 21st Century? In many places in the world<br />
women still have to fight to be heard, feminine men<br />
and homosexuals are being violently attacked or even<br />
punished with death, and transgender people are still<br />
being looked upon as a curiosity. Have we moved forward<br />
through history or have we become even stricter? Which<br />
stories of our time will we add to this portrait gallery in<br />
<strong>10</strong> years?<br />
www.matthijsholland.nl<br />
et alors? 113
part of the genderblender exhibition<br />
name louise de ville<br />
location paris, france<br />
website www.louisedeville.com<br />
Can you describe the work you are showing at MU<br />
Eindhoven in three lines?<br />
Louis(e) de Ville is a performance artist and gender<br />
activist who performs equally in galleries, theatres,<br />
and queer spaces throughout Europe. She has been<br />
kinging for 13 years, and through her workshops<br />
she has helped over 500 women to express their<br />
masculine alter-ego. At MU Eindhoven she is giving<br />
a workshop.<br />
What is the genderblender angle?<br />
The Dragking workshop is an opportunity to be<br />
transformed into a man, a guy, a bro, a dude. You<br />
learn techniques to transform both physically and<br />
socially in a masculine way and to display confidence<br />
and dominance in all that you do.<br />
Why this fascination when it comes to gender?<br />
Much has been said and understood about<br />
performing femininity (one is not born but becomes<br />
a woman) but little has been done to understand the<br />
performance of masculinity. By making it accessible,<br />
one can level the playing field socially, by being<br />
less intimidated and to assert oneself. With a little<br />
‘man’scara, a different posture, and some masculine<br />
clothes, we can cross the invisible gender barrier,<br />
and hopefully begin to close the gender gap.<br />
Future dreams?<br />
More women to experience Drag King culture. It is<br />
fun, liberating, political and an accessible way to<br />
question gender and its role in society. The way to<br />
true gender equality is understanding the limitations<br />
of the binary structure, and how expressing yourself<br />
with a combination of codes is deemed to be<br />
masculine/feminine. Hopefully the documentary<br />
by Chriss Lag, being filmed currently in France, will<br />
help bring this culture/experience to more people!<br />
114 et alors?
© emilie jouvet 2012
wetzer<br />
& baauw<br />
part of the genderblender exhibition<br />
interview fleur pierets photos wetzer & baauw<br />
et alors? 117
Wetzer & Baauw is a collaboration between<br />
multi-disciplinary artists Hanneke Wetzer and<br />
Leonie Baauw. They have been working together<br />
for several years and share a fascination for<br />
gender issues, exploring both the visual aspects<br />
and the social and cultural impact. Their art<br />
projects invariably incite discussion and show<br />
a large grey area between ‘male’ and ‘female’,<br />
instead of the conventional bipolar M/F.<br />
Two autonomous artists are setting up a<br />
collaboration, a collective: there must be an<br />
enormous understanding between the two of you.<br />
Leonie We met each other at the art academy and<br />
shared a fascination with skin, gender and identity.<br />
Our collaboration was a logical thing to do because<br />
even at the academy we created very similar<br />
works without each other’s knowledge. We were<br />
experimenting with the same things.<br />
Hanneke I was working on a project with physically<br />
disabled people and needed some help. When I called<br />
Leonie and talked about a future collaboration, we<br />
wanted to make it a bit more edgy. Why not centre<br />
our work around a group of people that has been left<br />
aside in mainstream society. Since we are both very<br />
fascinated by and interested in transgender, it was<br />
an easy decision to make.<br />
Why this fascination with gender?<br />
Hanneke I have had this fascination for as long as I<br />
can remember. I was just as much in love with David<br />
Bowie as I was with Annie Lennox; their gender<br />
was never an issue. I also take a huge interest in<br />
surrealism. Magritte, Dali, etc. Gender is quite<br />
surreal once you start thinking about it. The blending<br />
of male and female traits transforms someone into<br />
a mythical being. It is almost a divine fantasy world.<br />
You have an ongoing project called ‘X and some<br />
other chromosome’ in which you focus on gender<br />
themes.<br />
Hanneke What is gender? What makes someone a<br />
man or a woman? Is it nature or nurture? Apart from<br />
the internal structure and external appearance of<br />
our bodies and some genes and hormones: what<br />
really defines a man or a woman, psychologically?<br />
And how much does it matter? Those are interesting<br />
questions that we want to explore.<br />
One of your first creations was called ‘Men to Be’.<br />
118 et alors?
Hanneke In the triptych ‘Men to Be’ we used<br />
masculine metaphors of consumption to pay<br />
tribute to the artists we admire.<br />
Leonie One of the photographs, the one of<br />
Hanneke with a beard of chocolate sprinkles, was<br />
an instant hit.<br />
‘Men to Be’ very naturally leads to ‘X% Y%’. Can<br />
you tell me about that?<br />
Hanneke While working on ‘Men to Be’ we talked a<br />
lot about the direction we were about to take as a<br />
collective. One day I told Leonie that I have always<br />
been fascinated by the idea of being a woman with<br />
a penis. It was pretty weird when Leonie instantly<br />
said she had always wanted to be a man with a<br />
vagina.<br />
Leonie It was an obvious continuation to ask<br />
ourselves how other people would feel. So we<br />
made a portrait series of <strong>10</strong>0 people. The portraits<br />
included an infographic that displays how much<br />
male and female they feel. The series shows the<br />
large grey area between male and female.<br />
Any surprising results?<br />
Leonie Homosexuals feel very manly. Older people<br />
tend to define themselves as <strong>10</strong>0% male or female<br />
but I think that is due to their upbringing. Women<br />
are inclined to report a larger male percentage.<br />
Probably because here in The Netherlands we<br />
are quite emancipated. Men, on the other hand,<br />
are quite reticent when it comes to showing their<br />
female side. The project showed us that we still<br />
have a strong M/F way of thinking.<br />
And now the two of you are curating the<br />
GenderBlender expo in MU Eindhoven. That is<br />
quite a big step to take.<br />
Hanneke We love it and we spend every minute of<br />
our spare time on this exhibition that shows work<br />
by artists with a jaunty approach to the gender<br />
subject.<br />
Leonie We wanted to make the gender theme as<br />
accessible as possible.<br />
You are also showing some new work by<br />
Wetzer&Baauw.<br />
Leonie People can play with our interactive puzzle,<br />
for example. We have a large frame and pieces with<br />
both male and female features. People can create<br />
the body they want.<br />
‘It was an obvious<br />
continuation to<br />
ask ourselves how<br />
other people would<br />
feel. So we made<br />
a portrait series<br />
of <strong>10</strong>0 people. The<br />
portraits included<br />
an infographic<br />
that displays how<br />
much male and<br />
female they feel.<br />
The series shows<br />
the large grey area<br />
between male and<br />
female.’<br />
Hanneke It is a brainteaser because at what point<br />
does a body show its actual gender features? Up to<br />
what point does it stay undefined?<br />
What is your goal? Who is your perfect viewer?<br />
Leonie People don’t have to have a special interest<br />
or background in gender issues. It is accessible for<br />
all.<br />
Hanneke We want to trigger their thoughts on<br />
gender, both their own and others. We want to raise<br />
questions regarding tolerance and the axiomatic<br />
M/F way of thinking.<br />
Hanneke A lot of people find it obvious that you are<br />
either male or female. Anything else is weird and<br />
leads to exclusion. It is our goal to do something<br />
about it.<br />
www.facebook.com/wetzerbaauw<br />
www.xandsomeotherchromosome.tumblr.com<br />
et alors? 121
www<br />
www.bl.uk<br />
www.dennisveldman.nl<br />
www.extravganza-party.be<br />
www.facebook.com/maria.kleopatra<br />
www.facebook.com/wetzerbaauw<br />
www.fotofestival.knokke-heist. be<br />
www.hannahhoneywill.co.uk<br />
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www.mu.nl<br />
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www.powells.com<br />
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www.reinvollenga.blogspot.be<br />
www.savagelovecast.com<br />
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www.skinover.biz<br />
www.staedelmuseum.de<br />
www.sven-ratzke.com<br />
www.tareqdemontfort.com<br />
www.vrolijk.nu<br />
www.xandsomeotherchromosome.tumblr.com<br />
122 et alors?
Rings For All For Ever!<br />
w w w . n i c o t a e y m a n s . c o m