EXPO ‘BODYPARTy’ – Goldfingers Gallery, Copenhagen (DK) – 10 Janv.-5 Fevr. 2013
BODYPARTy / Katrine Borup
10 jan – 5 feb / Fernisering 9 jan. kl 16-19 / Artist talk 16 jan 16.30 -17.30
BODYPARTy is a jewellery series related to anatomic models – objects that playfully address a likeness to body parts, organs, tissue types, cell structures etc.
It can be characterized as a sort of information project but also as a critique of today’s prevailing concept of the body that is based on information and science. We know EVERYTHING there is to know about what is healthy and unhealthy for us. We are bombarded with self-help books, articles in women’s magazines and information campaigns. Control and restraint are in vogue; pleasure and indulgence are considered signs of weakness.
All the jewellery is made of balloons. This choice is not least based on a desire to strike a contrast to the rational mindset – balloons are associated with celebrations and happy occasions, childish innocence; they hold immediate appeal and are very physical ….they make us want to reach out and touch. In the project, some of the most prominent balloon characteristics, such as their inflatability, have been used as a comment on to the body-related theme.
The project also plays with the concepts of applied art, crafts, art and design, in part by virtue of the functional quality of some of the pieces – although the function does border on the absurd.
The jewellery in the BODYPARTy series consists of deliberately contradictory, almost inconsistent objects, at once playful and serious, appealing and unappealing, intellectual and sensuous. At once cause and effect or disease, cure and prevention in an often confounding mix.
“The fact is that we all have a risk of dying of all sorts of things. And the risk of dying is 100 percent.”
John Brodersen, associate professor in the Department of Public Health, the University of Copenhagen
Katrine Borup Piece: 7 units a week … well, maybe just a drop more … /red wine flask 2013
Wine-coloured mouths of balloons, two complete balloons, corks, red leather string, silver
My worst visions of a stomach suffering the effects of too much red wine – spongy and full of holes. Two complete balloons have been inserted into the stomach to mark the transitions to, respectively, the oesophagus and the intestines, and the size and shape of the stomach is approximately correct. This piece of jewellery is worn on the body like a waist pack, so that the container is located on top of the actual stomach on the left side of the body, directly underneath the ribs. The wearer can fill the two balloons with a liquid according to preference (and conscience). The red X on the back acts as a ‘NO’ mark.
The human spine consists of 24 vertebrae, the os sacrum and the coccyx. In between the vertebrae (7 cervical (neck) vertebrae, 12 thoracic (middle back) vertebrae and 5 lumbar (lower back) vertebrae) there are a total of 23 elastic discs, made of cartilage, which serve as buffers to prevent the shock of body movements from affecting the brain. Over time, the discs are worn, and in the Western world especially, many people suffer from back problems; a prolapsed disc is a common diagnosis. Too much sedentary work is one of the explanations, and the solution – both the prevention and the cure – is physical activity and posture-correcting and muscle-strengthening back training.
Disco Collapse consists of 23 balloon discs that can be assembled to form 4 small (disco) balls (which also bear some resemblance to massage balls), which in turn can be combined in pairs to form “dumbbells”. The piece can take on a wide variety of shapes, from the completely collapsed to the carefully assembled. The 23 balloon discs vary in size like the discs of the spine, and the assembly of the balloon snippets plays on the fact that a prolapsed disc is a bulge on a disc that occurs as the soft centre of the disc pushes through the tough connective tissue that surrounds the disc. The balloon discs consist of nothing but bulges. The mouth of a balloon has been integrated to reflect a dream of simply being able to fix a prolapsed buffer by re-inflating it.
A section of my beautifully colour-enhanced small intestine enlarged ten times.
This piece of jewellery resembles the shape and appearance of the small intestine – a section of human small intestine enlarged ten times. The inside of the small intestine is covered in intestinal villi: millimetre-sized folds that increase the surface area of the small intestine and thus the absorption of nutrients considerably. Drowning by E-numbers is a wide belt or tube that one pulls up around one’s body (or down – depending on one’s build) – a balloon corset. Drowning by E-numbers maintains the same diameter throughout the length of the tube, so unlike a normal corset it will fit loosely around the waist and tend to fold up, turning the ”villi-lined” interior inside-out. In this state, the piece almost resembles a bathing ring or life ring. Others might be reminded of a “belly tyre”. While the corset is associated with CONTROL, the tyre is a sign of the opposite. The title refers to food colouring and plays with the idea that it takes knowledge and information to eat right. Anyone taking on that challenge might soon find themselves drowning in the vast ocean of often contradictory information on the topic.
Klosterstræde 18
1157 Copenhagen K
Denmark
Tlf (+45) 32173730
mail@goldfingers.dk
http://www.goldfingers.dk/dk/page/bodyparty–katrine-borup
