Jeanneworks, Typologies & Capacities

Some 7

Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Jan 2004

Duration: 07.09.2004 - 14.11.2004
Location: Ludwig Museum, Budapest
Participants: 9
Visitors: people visiting the exhibition
Number of Events: 1
Additional Presentations: RAM Foundation, Rotterdam (12.02.2004 - 19.03.2006); Art Amsterdam, Amsterdam (03.05.2006 - 07.05.2006)

During a residency at the Ludwig Museum in Budapest in 2004, Van Heeswijk produced, in collaboration with Marten Winters, a series of video interviews examining particular female roles in society. The work had a strong personal premise and was based on the text 'Creative Urge Annex a Zeal for Improvement' (2000) by philosopher Maaike Engelen, a text about the various (female) roles that make up the artist persona that Van Heeswijk sometimes adapts in her professional life. Van Heeswijk used this fictional dialogue on the different creative characteristics for the first time in a public reading done by seven female professionals during the exhibition 'Service', held in Kunsthallen Budapest in 2001.

Asked to create a piece for 'The Production Space' programme of the Ludwig Museum, Van Heeswijk was curious to find out what these female roles of museum guard, poet, critic, philosopher, chambermaid, secretary, dancer represent in a post-communist Budapest just entering the EU. With Winters she interviewed seven women, considered to be good at their jobs. Mrs Dezso Gyorffy, Orsolya Karáfiath, Katalin Timár, Eszter Babarczy, Mária Sánta, Zsuzsana Papp and Yvette Bozsik talk about their professions and explain to their audience why it is that they are good at what they do and what skills it takes. The seven women represent the seven female qualities - the poetical, critical, philosophical, nurturing, light-footed, organisational and watchfulness - that form the basis for engaged creativity.

Some7 (2004) was presented at the Ludwig Museum as three precisely co-ordinated projections, continuously shifting from one to the other. The museum bought the work for its collection in 2005. In 2006 it was shown in the exhibition 'Preview' at RAM Foundation. RAM also displayed the work as part of Van Heeswijk's solo exhibition at the 2006 Art Amsterdam show.

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