{"id":27190,"date":"2019-04-30T10:37:12","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T08:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/?p=27190"},"modified":"2024-07-30T10:41:50","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T08:41:50","slug":"the-womenal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/en\/27190\/the-womenal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Womenal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Artists:<\/strong> Agata Agatowska, Iwona Demko,\u00a0Georgia Fambris,\u00a0Urszula Kluz-Knopek,\u00a0Natalia Kopytko,\u00a0Katarzyna Kuku\u0142a,\u00a0Ewa Kulka,\u00a0Jasmin Lother, Ma\u0142gorzata Markiewicz,\u00a0Agata Norek,\u00a0Anna Orbaczewska,\u00a0Elena Provata,\u00a0Ulrike Segerberg,\u00a0Ma\u0142gorzata Wielek-Mandrela<\/p>

+ G\u00fcnter Grass<\/p>

Curators:<\/strong> Iwona Demko, Renata Kopyto, Marta Wr\u00f3blewska<\/p>

Part 1:<\/strong> G\u00fcnter Grass Gallery in Gda\u0144sk, 27.04-22.06.2019<\/p>

Part 2:<\/strong> House of Nuremberg in Cracow w Krakowie, 11.10-22.11.2019<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Special event at the opening in Gda\u0144sk on 27.04 at 6 pm \u2013 performance by M.O.G (Mothers of God \u2013 Ulrika Segerberg & Katrin Plav\u010dak)<\/p>

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>

The exhibition entitled The Womenal<\/em> derived from G\u00fcnter Grass\u2019s novel called The Flounder<\/em>. Its leading theme is the feminist history of the world according to Grass, the relation between men and women, as well as the criticism of patriarchy and male dominance.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

The Flounder <\/em>by G\u00fcnter Grass was published in Germany in 1977, almost 10 years after social transformations which took place in 1968, during which the second wave of feminism went through West Germany. This book fitted into the atmosphere which was in the air in those times. And despite the harsh criticism it received from the contemporary feminist milieus, from today\u2019s perspective it can be seen as prophetic.\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

The starting point for this tale about the history of mankind as the history of male emancipation from the power of matriarchy, is the well-known brothers Grimm story which in Polish version is entitled About the Fisherman and Golden Fish<\/em>, and in German – About<\/em> the Fisherman and His Wife. <\/em>In the book two versions are interwoven: in the first one, the caught fish (Grass\u2019s flounder in this case) makes all dreams of the greedy fisherman\u2019s wife come true; in the second one, it is the man who keeps wanting more and more things and power to help him rule the world. Certainly, it leads to a catastrophe and final disaster. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

The circle of history described by the author encompasses the primeval tribes from the matriarchy epoch, through the middle ages, after that renaissance, followed by Prussian State, up till contemporary times, that is the 70s of 20th<\/sup> century. Exactly then, three feminists catch the speaking flounder in the North Sea. The fish becomes the personification of the whole male-kind and tells a story how it inspired men to break free from the power of women. He appoints himself the director of the story of humankind and the author of the script for this narration. The book is divided into nine chapters parallel to nine months of pregnancy. The story that is being told is at the same time the interrogation of the big fish in front of a feminist tribunal, the so calledThe Womenal<\/em>. The emancipation of the male-kind is at the same time the story of women\u2019s subjugation and exclusion from active life. We can trace how they are deprived of the influence on their own lives, and how they are gradually undergoing the oppressive rules of functioning in the patriarchal society.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

One of the places they were assigned, apart from bedroom and church, was the kitchen. Grass sees in cooking and perfecting this skill by introducing new ingredients and creating new dishes, a kind of magic, curing witchcraft, the power to control the strength and weakness of the body. Nine women cooks are the protagonists of the novel. They are, according to Grass, an integral part of the local history of Pomerania, and perhaps the global history too. In the prehistoric times women were born with the third breast to feed the men with their own milk, as this ritual had a sedative effect on them. Later on, thanks to introducing potato to the menu, women protected many people from famine, and with the help of warm thick soup they would disarm the tyrants. Enemies were eliminated by adding poisonous ingredients taken from the natural resources and included in the dishes. The Flounder<\/em> contains numerous recipes and shows their evolution: from milk dishes, through meat and fish diet, up to the discovery of forest fruits and plant cuisine.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

If women did not consider marriage as the biggest happiness in their lives, they could go to the nunnery. It was the place where they could finally renounce the sexual services like Dorothea of Montau who, according to Grass \u201cwas the first woman (in our region) to rebel against the patriarchal tyranny of medieval marriage\u201d (The Founder<\/em>, p. 166). Or, on opposite, they could enjoy full sexual freedom like Margarete Rusch. The promiscuous Abbess of Saint Bridget\u2019s Convent \u201csolved the bitterly earnest question of the century, the question of how to serve up the bread and wine, the Lord\u2019s Supper, in her own way, to wit, bedwise, by acrobatically moving her twat into the vertical and offering is as a chalice, which was then filled with red wine\u201d (The Flounder<\/em>, p. 209).<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Despite the considerable understanding for the political and social situation in Germany in the 70s, and the effort to understand and describe the situation of women with empathy, Grass\u2019s novel contains fragments which were unacceptable for the feminist movements, nor for any women working in arts. Professor Maria Janion points out some of the controversial theses uttered by the Flounder, that \u201conly men are equipped with the ability to experience metaphysical feelings\u201d, \u201cmaking art is only the male domain\u201d, \u201cwoman with her \u2018moist warmth\u2019 can be at best the source of creative inspiration for men, his silent muse\u201d, \u201cwoman should remain unmoved like the \u2018mossy earth\u2019 and be happy she can serve.\u201d<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Women, who have been able to study and make art at the academies only for the last 100 years, 40 years after The Flounder <\/em>has been written are able to prove how Grass\u2019s fish was wrong. Among the themes undertaken within the exhibition. The Flounder himself, held responsible for this state of affairs, and put to court, thus announces prophetically: \u00a0\u201cI gave you the knowledge and power, but all you wanted was war and misery. Nature was entrusted to you, and what did you do, you despoiled it (\u2026). In short: you men are finished\u201d (The Flounder<\/em>, p. 453). From today\u2019s point of view one can add: also within the domains which the author is willing to defend in the above quotes. One thing is certain though: in this exhibition art is the domain of women.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Renata Kopyto<\/p>

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Artists: Agata Agatowska, Iwona Demko,\u00a0Georgia Fambris,\u00a0Urszula Kluz-Knopek,\u00a0Natalia Kopytko,\u00a0Katarzyna Kuku\u0142a,\u00a0Ewa Kulka,\u00a0Jasmin Lother, Ma\u0142gorzata Markiewicz,\u00a0Agata Norek,\u00a0Anna Orbaczewska,\u00a0Elena Provata,\u00a0Ulrike Segerberg,\u00a0Ma\u0142gorzata Wielek-Mandrela + G\u00fcnter Grass Curators: Iwona Demko, Renata Kopyto, Marta Wr\u00f3blewska Part 1: G\u00fcnter Grass Gallery in Gda\u0144sk, 27.04-22.06.2019 Part 2: House of Nuremberg in Cracow w Krakowie,…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[97],"class_list":["post-27190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-4g-en","tag-single-photo"],"acf":{"data_rozpoczecia":"20190427","data_zakonczenia":"20190622","miejsce":"4G"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27190"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27195,"href":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27190\/revisions\/27195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}