SEXWORK Kunst Mythos Realität
Albertine i politilægens ventevlærelse, 2006
(Albertine at the Police Doctor's Waiting Room)
240 min video + 10 min sound live mix
With the video work Albertine at the Police Doctor's Waiting Room , Ulrike Solbrig centers on the exceptional painting by the Norwegian artist Christian Krohg. First shown in 1887, it documents a case of police misconduct in connection with Norway's Contagious Disease Act. Literally focusing on the painting over the period of an entire day at the museum, the production itself takes on a performative dimension, as the visitors rushing to Edvard Munch's paintings, irritated by the video shoot, have their gaze redirected to the focal point of the camera. On a linked audio piece, heard with individual headphones, the ambient museum sound playing on loudspeakers, is simultaneously mixed with Solbrig recounting the story of her historical research and comments she gathered from people in Oslo.
Krohg's painting appeared about a half year after the publication of his naturalistic novel Albertine , which detailed the painting's background story. The novel and painting were a cause célèbre at the time and inspired a wave of political protest which added to the early revocation of the Contagious Disease Act. Solbrig's installation references Krohg's naturalistic style, as in her use of “real-time” in the long uncut video sequence and sound mix of the museum's day. Krohg's initial impulse, to give a neglected social injustice a public airing, is echoed here by reclaiming this explosive part of political art history for a contemporary audience.
Alan Marsik
The video installation has been presented at: SEXWORK, Kunst Mythos, Realität at Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin, Katalog. Solbrig was part of the NGBK working group.
Artist insert for the Swedish Feminist Magazine bang 2005:
The Case of Albertine
Vrinda Grover (lawyer, Delhi), Ebba Moi (visual artist, Oslo) and Ulrike Solbrig (visual artist, Berlin).
In this edition of Bang Gry O. Ulrichsen and Ebba Moi from New Meaning chose to present the German artist Ulrike Solbrig.
We came in contact with Ulrike Solbrig during her stay at the studio at Office for Contemporary Art in Oslo (equivalent to Swedish IASPIS) where she conducted a research on Albertine, a painting by Christian Krohg hanging in the National Gallery.
The thing that stands out in Ulrike Solbrig's art is narration as a method. Narration stands for both collecting information as well as acting as a catalyst. Solbrig has realized that there are different versions of what really has happened when the painting and the novel of the same name where published in 1886. Solbrig created a network of branches to Albertine and the story about Christian Krohg and shows the way to Albertine until one understands that it well-deserves a place on the map of important political artworks.
In Oslo Solbrig met Vrinda Grover, human rights activist and lawyer from New Delhi in India. She had also been on the National Gallery and had been touched by what she saw. They met to figure out what the story of Albertine really was...
VG: I’m a lawyer in New Delhi in India. In my university days I was part of a feminist street theater group which performed plays in colleges and other places. Presently, most of my cases deal with human rights and in particular women’s cases, campaigns for changes in the law.
US: Which is, in a way, what the painter Christian Krohg, who was also a lawyer, did when he started his Albertine project in November 1886 by publishing the novel, “Albertine,” and some months later, showing his painting "Albertine at the Police Doctor’s Waiting Room". What was it like (to experience it), Vrinda?
VG: This was perhaps the only painting in the gallery that wasn’t just a single image, or idea. The painting intrigued me as concealed within it was a tale.
US: I was puzzled that mainstream European art history didn’t show it.
EM: Since I’m from Sweden, I can’t say when I first got knowledge about this painting. When I talked to Ulrike, it got fresher for me: its subject matter and power.
US: The painting at first gives you the feeling that everything is as it should be, but then you start to wonder… As I sat in front of the painting, I could see people going back and forth, looking at different aspects of it, or children demanding answers from their parents. You stated that you see it is a great painting for children…
VG: I think children see many things that as adults we can’t see anymore, so accustomed have we grown to hierarchies and oppression. I think chldren should learn about the power dynamics of gender in society right from the beginning.
US: You recently had cases in India…
VG: The first case that highlighted this issue was in 1980, when two policemen raped a 16-year-old tribal girl, Mathura. The Supreme Court acquitted both the policeman. It said that she was habituated to sex because she had already had a relationship with a young man, therefore, there was no reason to believe that she was raped. It was very clear where the notion came from: if women exercise their own sexuality, they are not protected anymore.
Since then in cases of custodial rape once the fact of rape is established the burden of proof shifts upon the accused. But these legal amendments can't purge the system of the prejudice that is inherent in the entire judicial system.
This April, in Mumbai, a police constable forced a young girl into a police booth and raped her. Subsequently right wing religious forces published articles saying these kinds of incidents are on the rise because young women dress provocatively. Rape is being described as a consequence of the introduction of Western culture into India.
US: I talked to Ingvild Krabbesund (who is part of the Norwegian DJ team, Ovary Action), who has written a paper because she was furious to find abstracts on the newer editions of the novel “Albertine” that say Albertine had been seduced by a police officer, when she had actually been raped.
EM: It almost seems that even after the story is more than a hundred years old, rumors are still spread about this woman
VG: It’s commonly said in India that 90% of women who lodge rape cases are lying: it’s actually the victim who is seen as the guilty party and there are not many convictions in rape cases. Until last year, it was legally permitted, to discuss the past sexual history and the girl's character as evidence in a rape trial. Which for a sex worker means the chance of securing justice is over. Only last year, they changed the law of evidence. You are now prohibited from discussing the sexual history of the rape victim.
The rape law as conceived in India is based on a completely patriarchal definition of rape. Only if there is sexual intercourse, penile penetration of the vagina, is it recognized as rape. Because the whole business of sexual intercourse and penetration is how patriarchy establishes ownership and control over women’s bodies, children and sexuality.
Another very drastic case occurred in a village in the 80’s, involving a Dalit woman, which is an outcast in the Hindu hierarchy. Working in a government-funded project it was part of her mandate to try and stop child marriages. When she tried to prevent the village headman from getting his one-year-old daughter married that was completely unheard of – a Dalit woman setting norms for social relations of the upper caste. To put her in her place, she was brutally raped. The trial court has acquitted the four men who did it, arguing that it was impossible that upper caste men would touch a Dalit woman, leave aside rape her – when it is actually very well known that Dalit women are frequently sexually abused by upper caste man. One interesting spin-off of this is that since it was part of the Dalit's woman's work duty, the entire law on sexual harassment at workplace has emerged out of this case. For the first time, sexual harassment guidelines have been introduced in India.
US: The Albertine case was related to Krohg by a model. The actual case never went to court. The novel tells us that a police officer raped this woman and subsequently summoned her to an examination at the police doctor’s, thus establishing her as a prostitute. The banning of the book clearly was related to the questioning of the morals of the police. Krohg defended his case against the banning in court.
VG: He engaged the public, rather than just confining the issue for determination within the courtroom. US: In the courtroom he quoted from the book, which was not allowed. The newspaper he was writing for, the “Dagbladet”, the next day reported that he had quoted from the book in court. The police tried to get hold of all of the newspapers and the following day, the paper made mockery of this. It published the previous day’s issue as an insert, with all the censored passages left blank. All this was widely discussed in the newspapers. The banned book was read aloud in the workers’ clubs. A demonstration against the banning of the book took place. It was a surprise to me that the working class in Oslo at the time associated with an issue regarding prostitute’s rights. In a recent case against Lithuanian pimps in Oslo, who were accused of gang-raping Lithuanian prositutes and forcing them to work for them, their lawyer suggested that one should be allowed to make a distinction between “worthy” and “unworthy” victims – that what a prostitute experiences in her job is similar to rape anyway. The lawyer for the pimps, then goes on to propose what amounts to the abolishing of basic human right’s protections for prostitutes. VG: Across continents the same battles are still being fought.
Lecture: SEXWORK. Myths, Art, Reality at the conference Through Women's Eyes, Performing Arts Centre Multimedia, Skopje Maccedonia.
Press: Blaue Augen,
we-make-money-not art
Research support by Office of Contemporary Art Norway
Ulrike Solbrig, Germany: Chausseestr. 110-I, 10115 Berlin, tel.: +49 1557 43 5656 3 ulrike@solbrig.de