A Work of Art: Written Assignment

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable | På min daglig cykeltur til stationen kommer jeg altid forbi en mur med et budskab om kunstens formål malet i grafitti. Det har jeg lavet en skriftlig opgave ud af, som jeg giver til mine engelsk-elever i 1g for at træne essay struktur og lægge op til diskussionsdelen af the nonfiction essay.

A Work of Art: The Assignment

Du kan downloade den fulde opgave herunder. Den består af en sprogdel, hvor eleverne skal rette og forklare sprogfejlen på billedet og en essayopgave, hvor eleverne skriver om et selvvalgt værk med udgangspunkt i grafitti-teksten.

Som hjælp til opgaven får eleverne en liste med sproglige virkemidler som de skal anvende i deres essay og nogle vocabulary boxes inspireret af antologien Wider Contexts.

Real Time Feedback og Mesterlære

På første år bruger jeg ofte tid på skrivelektioner, hvor eleverne får løbende vejledning og feedback på deres arbejde. Derudover har valgt selv at skrive essay-opgaven for at vise, hvordan den kan gribes an. Mit essay tager udgangspunkt i skulpturen “3 x 27 mandetimer på Tommerup” af den danske kunstner Kirsten Justesen, som jeg også sommetider kommer forbi på min cykelrute. Derudover er essayet inspireret af den debat om strikke-aktivisme og repræsentationen af kvinder i det offentlige rum, der har været i medierne henover vinteren.

Essay on a Work of Art

Ideas of feminine beauty have preoccupied the imagination of artists for centuries. In public art, female bodies are mostly nude, mostly beautiful, and mostly nameless. Idealized shapes for public consumption.

But the female body is not just an object to be gawked at in galleries, private homes, and public squares. Kirsten Justesen’s sculpture “3 x 27 man-hours at Tommerup” is a comment on the place women hold in public art. It shows just how ridiculous it is that so many anonymous bronze women are placed in public without clothes simply to be enjoyed as beautiful objects with no face, no voice, and no personality.

3 x 27 Man Hours at Tommerup

The sculpture marries concepts of figurative and abstract art. The woman sits cross-legged with her hands held in a defensive posture across her chest. She is dressed in ordinary shorts and a sleeveless top. A wife-beater perhaps? Her shape is not the idealized figure of the artist’s muse but a realistic depiction of an ordinary woman. But this is also the end of the sculpture’s realism. Where her head and face ought to be the artist has placed a square cube. The stark contrast between the realistic body and the geometric shape of the cube challenges the audience’s expectation of women in public spaces. It makes us think. Is she intentionally covering her face to avoid the public gaze? Is she deliberately being kept in the dark by people holding her hostage? Or is the artist challenging our perception by showing that most women in public art are devoid of identity no matter how much we see of their faces?

The title “3 x 27 man-hours at Tommerup” is another dig at a society which regards women as beautiful objects. It does not suggest anything about the identity of the woman. The title merely records the time of production in an industrial system devised and kept running by men.

If it is true that “art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” then this figure sitting by a gentrified industrial harbour is meant to disturb us. The sculpture reminds us that systemic issues of women’s rights and patriarchal structures are not fully resolved. We still expect our public women to be beautiful objects. Objects of passive delight submitted for consumption with no protection and no influence over their circumstances. Show them some respect.

Download