Other Works
Bob Smith Project (with Christine Melchiors, Eva Larsson, Susan Hinnum)
1991-1993
In the beginning of the 90’s four artists created a character who was received by their contemporary colleagues and critics as an invention, if not of Mary Shelleian dimensions, then at least as something unnecessary and without interest. The character represented patriarchy, or more precisely, the art institution as a hypostasis of patriarchy. The four – Susan Hinnum, Ann Lislegaard, Eva Larsson and Christine Melchiors – were among the group of younger artists who attempted to break with the hegemony of the neo-expressive simulation painting and the neo-academic sculpture – so-called postmodern practices that had dominated largely unassailed and unquestioned throughout the decade. Nothing suggested that this institutional man, willing to place value on a gender-aware art, would materialize quickly, much less in Denmark. They therefore invented the fictional, male curator Bob Smith – to whom they could, on account of his fictionality, attribute characteristics that would in principle enable him to further their career. The Anglo-American name implied that he might be from New York or London (prestigious). On the other hand, the name was common enough to ensure the degree of anonymity that would maintain the fiction of his connection to the four, female, Danish artists – thus the entire notion that a person with the power to sanction quality, whom was not already known by the four artists’ colleagues, could exist. (Frederikke Hansen)
“Masker og ild” & “Der brænder en ild”, Eva Pohl, Berlingske (1992)
“Kvalitet midt i skidtet”, Hellen Lassen, Politiken (1991)