Red-Light District as Art

November 5, 2009

The Hoerengracht, or "Whore’s Canal" (1983-1988 ), by the American assemblage artists Ed Kienholz and Nancy Reddin-Kienholz, is opening in England at London's National Gallery on 18 November 2009 (it has previously been exhibited at various locations around the world).

This installation reproduces, in full-scale, a section of Amsterdam's red-light district.

Susanna Forrest reports for The Times:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article6903296.ece

The Kienholz piece was championed by Colin Wiggins, the gallery’s acting head of education. "The British are so prissy, so safe and tame and tasteful," Wiggins says. "Kienholz communicates without an art historian having to come along and explain it. It smacks you in the stomach." He chose

The Hoerengracht

because its windows, light and vistas remind him of the gallery’s Dutch Old Masters on the same theme, which will show alongside the Kienholz girls ....

You walk down a grim alley, peering through smeary, red-lit windows at 11 "girls": their bodies are plaster casts, their heads poached from shop dummies and encased in glass-fronted boxes. One washes her crotch at the sink; another in fur coat and boots waits in the street; a blonde with her arms folded has harshly glamorous make-up and a black triangle of pubic hair under her clinging nylon knickers. Their bedrooms are cubbyholes with leopardprint wallpaper, and, outside, the Dutch everyday of parked bicycles. The scene has been haphazardly slopped over with a thick resin that dribbles down the girls’ hair and faces like horrible sap ....

If

The Hoerengracht

does have an ideological angle, Reddin-Kienholz says, it is: "Why lie about it? Why pretend [prostitution] isn’t going to exist? The only thing you do is put it underground and make it less safe for everybody. Less safe for the girls, less safe for the men, less safe for the community. It’s going for legalisation, because I don’t think it’s a sin. I believe that having open brothels is much safer .... "

Of the glass frames round the women’s heads, she explains: "They’re under the control of the women. She can control her own emotions and cut herself off."

Kienholz (1983-1988 ); Jan Steen (1660-1665) -- both prostitution art