The Hoerengracht (The Whores Canal)
Sunday, November 29th, 2009
Today I went to the National Gallery to see this art installation.
‘The Hoerengracht’ by Ed and Nancy Kienholz, is a life sized recreation of some of streets in the red light district in Amsterdam.
I had been to Amsterdam with one of my boys a few years ago, and we stayed at the Grand Krasnapolsky Hotel which was just around the corner from the red light area. Of course I knew about the girls in the windows, but I was still a bit gobsmacked when I saw it for real!
‘The Hoerengracht’ is a recreation of some of the 80′s streets, and it’s so ugly and disturbing. It’s a real picture sure, but again, only part of a bigger picture, that you and I know only too well.
The life sized resin ‘models’ have sad faces which are separated from the bodies by glass boxes, which to my mind was all about showing the head/brain/mind separation from their body function?
I really wanted to step into it for real, I very nearly went home and got myself dressed up…!
I wonder what the *artists would say?
I think they would like it, a bit of realism, yes, another kind of realism…and I wouldn’t need a glass box to separate My Head either.
*(Ed Kienholz died in 1994)
Imagine! You would think that I was a dummy and then, suddenly, I’d wink at you..(yes.. I did use ‘dummy’ and not ‘mannequin’ on purpose!)
Dare me? It’d be too much like the guys who jumped in Tracy Emin’s ‘My Bed’ though…?
The comparisons of sex and art is made by placing the piece closely with other works by other 17th century Dutch artists, and that is very interesting.
Go and see it.







