Venice 2011

A Doll in Europe
MM: a student perspective in relation to the Queensland College of Art and James Cook University International Study Tour to Europe June/July 2011

All sketches and photographic images are the property of the author MM unless otherwise indicated. The sketches are images from the authors visual diary: 2011.

Wurzburg 2011

The doll
The deconstructed doll is a recurring symbol in my art practice with the doll functioning as both a metaphor for myself and as an omnipresent symbol recognisable to all humanity. The bland and increasingly battered body of the doll acts as a powerful symbol or message that is determined by the context within which the doll is placed.

Venice 2011

As argued by Selene Wendt (2010, p. 11), the doll not only emphasises how we are shaped by our surroundings, it also accentuates how easily we become trapped within our perceived roles.

Wurzburg 2011

The doll reflects both the tragedy and humour of life providing insight into the psyche of human nature. As a consequence, the doll permits us to contextualise the games we play.

Wurzburg 2011

In June/July 2011, I participated in an International Study Tour to Europe with the Queensland College of Art and James Cook University. A deconstructed doll became the leading protagonist in a photographic, sketching, and printmaking project that continues way beyond the tour. There is a strong thematic correlation between this project, Henrik Ibsens play A Dolls House and the doll ever present in the art of Marianne Heske.

Wurzburg 2011 Why the doll? I do not like dolls. As a child, my mother gave me dolls I was not allowed to touch. These evil things sat on my dressing table asserting their gaze until one day I smashed the dolls, pulled off their heads and shredded their dresses. The dolls were taken away. The irony for me is

that the deconstructed doll is now a major symbol in my own practice.

Prague 2011

For me the doll represents a singular yet vast arena of human experience acting as a forum for the metaphysical and the psychological. It is an introspective medium presenting at times as a personal battlefield within both an ideological and aesthetic terrain. My work with the doll challenges society to confront those inescapable issues of discrimination against gender, mental health, disability, religion and self.

Berlin 2011

The doll allows me to explore my experiences as a woman and as a woman artist within a patriarchal society. As one of the other, I am still from time to time called upon to justify my girlie art.

Wurzburg 2011

What is the role of the doll as a cultural tourist? Considered within the European context, the doll in situ becomes a focal point for contemplation and reflection. The doll provides a link to the preceding centuries of cultural history, architecture, art and literature that has both unified and fractured the world.

Venice 2011

In an interview with Carlo McCormick (nd, p. 4), Kiki Smith observed that consciously you may not even be aware that most of the things you think are historical. Smith argues that we are just a product of what people were thinking five hundred years ago. One cannot fully understand this concept until one indeed becomes a cultural tourist.

Venice 2011

As a tourist, I could easily have been mesmerised by the romance of each situation, passing through without time for thought or contemplation, enjoying only the immediate moment. By pausing with the doll, searching for locations that appealed to both the ideological and the aesthetic, my experience went way beyond the superficial. In many places I wanted to stay, breathe in the energy and celebrate.

Wurzburg 2011

In others I found a connection to a darker side, the violent, the sinister and the perverse. At times I almost choked, the shudder became too much. Who were the people? What did they see? How did they die? Whom did they love? How were they murdered? Where was the rape? What was their story?

Wurzburg 2011

All that remains of their trace is the shudder.

Wurzburg 2011

The doll fractured in mind and body became every man, a politicised body: a vehicle for communication.

Prague 2011

Europe is full of extremes with the fabric of each city being held together by monumental architecture: The Residence and the Fortress Marienberg in Wurzburg, Prague Castle, St Vitus Cathedral and The Old Town Square in Prague, and

Berlin 2011

the Brandenburg Gate, The Reichstag and The Tree House in Berlin.

Burano 2011

In Venice there is San Marco, the Basilica Santa Maria della Salute and the quaint little dolls houses on the island of Burano.

Prague 2011

There are also the homes where people live along side the rows of empty, forgotten, neglected and decaying buildings.

Prague 2011

In Prague these are the ghosts, whose history is lost forever. These are the stories that remain silent, no longer a memory. Boarded up windows, smashed doors, walls etched with graffiti, shreds of lace curtain, rotting rubbish, cigarette butts and the acrid smell of urine add yet another layer to the history.

Prague 2011

The wind in Prague whispering, damp and cold alludes to a European biography shrouded by the spectre of war, memories of cruel persecutions and dreadful atrocities against race, women, children and religion.

Prague 2011

All of a sudden there is a need to escape the shudder: time for a brandy, a coffee and a meal. In Berlin there are more corners, more steps and locked doorways, more graffiti, more cigarette butts and again that all pervading smell of urine. This time there are the bullet holes and the remnants of the wall the great divide between East and West. In Berlin however there is an energy, a vitality and a pulse for life.

Venice 2011

In Venice the whispers begin again as the doll absorbs it all. The doll becomes the open medium for reflection upon the lives within the houses. Through the metaphor of the dolls house one contemplates Heskes observation that within the harmony of the most symmetrical house, we find the turbulent asymmetry of human conflicts, the struggle of intellect and emotion, the daily disaster of human experience (cited in Friedman 2010, p. 56).

Why Ibsen? The dolls house provided Ibsen with the perfect metaphor for human experience and in 1879 his play A Dolls House, exploded like a bomb into contemporary life (Koht cited in Weckwerth 2004, p. 2). Michael Meyer argued that A Dolls House knew no mercy: ending not in reconciliation, but an inexorable calamity pronouncing a death sentence on accepted social ethics (1971, p. 454). Through the metaphor of the dolls house Ibsen explores the interaction between the psychological, the social and the philosophical.

Venice 2011

Burano 2011

As defined by Ken Friedman, the dolls house, the classic European house, has echoes reaching back across time to models of an idealized past (2010, p. 53). Friedman continues:

The house is life sized. It is never the less a dolls house. The model house hints at the lives inside. A dolls house represents toy worlds. We think of these as lovely worlds, charming, radiant with the joy and pleasures of childhood (2010, p. 53).

Berlin 2011

Through such political ideology the home becomes a symbol of safety and security. Ibsen emphasises however that this is not the reality. For Ibsen, the dolls house is a facade existing to mask dark secrets of abuse and demeaning games. John Gregory (2006, p. 21) reiterates the family home can be translated into clashes between class and sexual difference, masculinity versus femininity, melodrama, alienation and psychological and physical violence. The toy world of the dolls house socialises little girls to the adult life to come, the social worlds of childhood prepare us for a life of difficulty and deception (Friedman 2010, p. 53).

Venice 2011

Ibsen uses the metaphor of the dolls house to reinforce the tragic scale of human life, emphasising that the female protagonist Nora was first and foremost a human being (Ibsen cited in Tornqvist 1995, p. 6). Ibsen well aware of gender inequality is concerned with how the feminist instinct (nature) is pitted against masculine regulative thinking (culture) (Tornqvist 1995, p. 8).

Prague 2011

Ibsens notes preceding A Dolls House argue that:

There are two kinds of moral law, two kinds of conscience, one in man and a completely different one in woman. They do not understand each other; but in matters of practical living the woman is judged by mans law, as if she were not a woman but a man(Ibsen cited Tornqvist 1995, p. 1).

Prague 2011

Toril Moi refers back to Hegel and his description of human society that has:

one set of ethical imperatives for males, as social beings, and another for women, whose ethical imperatives are seen entirely inside the small structure of the home, where they are wives, mothers, sisters, daughters and not individuals (cited in Byatt 2009, p. 2).

Prague 2011

Moi emphasises that Ibsen regarded this to be a set of constructed ideals of love, fidelity, self-sacrifice and so on, that constricted and deformed many human lives and selves (cited in Byatt 2009, p. 2). A Dolls House confronts this issue. Ibsens concern lies with the state of the human soul as it cuts across class and gender lines (Finney 1994, p. 90).

Prague 2011

This play is about contemporary human issues that still resonate today. Whilst in Prague, I was fascinated with The Memorial to the Victims of Communism (1948-1989). This memorial is dedicated not only to those who were jailed or executed, but also those whose lives were ruined by total despotism. Controversy, however, surrounds this memorial, as it does not display figures of women and children.

Venice 2011

The power of Ibsens drama is its direct existential challenge to personal engagement with great issues. In so doing it opens up a world of judgement and feeling as well as a world of fact. The focus is the daily struggle of intellect and emotion, and the daily disaster of human experience (Friedman 2010, p. 56). Meyer (cited in Urban, p. 1) argues that Ibsens work is about the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she really is to avoid the tragedy of missing out on life and plodding along in a state of living death.

Venice 2011

Becoming a cultural tourist is one way of experiencing life. It challenges one at every corner to reflect and reconsider Ibsens utopian dream of an existence in freedom and truth.

Venice 2011

The doll, a childs toy, is my link to Ibsens dolls house. The doll is a metaphoric signifier for all human experience.

Venice 2011

In 1976, a century after Ibsen wrote A Dolls House, 26,000 women under the slogan of Reclaim the Night descended on Romes piazzas to argue the right to the existence of a feminine identity that was not a reflection of masculine values (Scacci 2010, p. 52).

Marianne Heske Manscape 1976

At the same time in Paris, the artist Marianne Heske greatly inspired by Ibsens A Dolls House was using a dolls head as a metaphor for womens experiences by transforming the doll into a symbol of humanity, a representation of the anonymous individual immersed in the masses (Scacci 2010, p. 52). An example of her work at this time is Manscape (The Faceless Face of the Masses) (1976) (Figure1).

Venice 2011

The dolls head in Heskes work became a mask: something to hide behind when dealing with others. In Venice, one quickly became aware of the presence of the mask and the spirit of the Carnevale. A centuries old tradition, masks are everywhere along with elaborate costumes designed to hide the identity of the wearer. Like the dolls house the mask can hide the truth.

Venice 2011

If the doll had a face who would it be? One of the standout features of the tour was our exposure to the amazing wealth of art to be seen in the forms of painting, sculpture, film, performance and graffiti. The depth of social and political relevance of much of the work has left a lasting impression. The doll I took to Europe does not have a head allowing for a greater representation of every man.

Anselm Kiefer Lilith am Roten Meer, 1990

The doll does not wear clothing. As Nora states in A Dolls House I am taking off my fancy dress (Ibsen 1879, p. 96). Like Nora, the doll wants release from its destiny as an eternal play thing.

Berlin 2011

As I travelled, I paused many times imagining the life of the people in the images before me. Could any of these images be the face of the doll? Could the face be found amongst the graffiti of Berlin

Wurzburg 2011

the university students of Wurzburg, as a poster in a window

Prague 2011

or as a statue

Prague 2011

or icon in Prague?

Prague & Venice 2011

Perhaps it could be found in a communist museum or at the Venice Biennale in the work of Christian Boltanski

Venice 2011

or Marcus Schinwald.

Venice 2011

There is no face: just lingering traces to be found within the body of my art.

Venice 2011

Life is both a comedy and a tragedy. As Friedman concludes, we wait to meet each other behind the calm, perfect facade of the dolls house. Here too, each of us waits to meet-and make-a self (Friedman 2010, p. 10). As Ibsen observed there are no answers, no happy ending, just a continuing journey. One is left alone to search. A dolls house provides a make believe world and the doll continues the game

Venice 2011

and then, there it is again, the shattered hope of the slamming door.

Post script: Ibsen: A Dolls House (last 5 lines of play) HELMER (sinking down on a chair by the door and burying his face in his hands): Nora! Nora! (He rises and looks round.) Empty! Shes not here any more! (With a glimmer of hope) The greatest miracle of all? (From below comes the noise of a door slamming.)

References
Byatt, A 2009, Blaming Nora, viewed 10 August 2011, <http://www .guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/may/02/ibsen-a-dolls-house>. Finney, G 2008, Ibse and Feminismin Ibsen, J McFarlane, (ed.), n Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 89-105. Friedman, K 2010, A Dolls House from Ibsen to Heskein Marianne Hesk e, S. Wendt (ed.), Skira, Milano, pp. 53-59. Gregory, J 2006, Carnival in Suburbia: The Art of Howard Arkley, Cambridge University press, Cambridge. Ibsen, H 1897, A Dolls House, (translated by M Meyer, 1965), A & C Black Publishers, London. McCormick, C, Kiki Smith, Journal Of Contemporary Art, viewed 21 September 2011, <http://www .jca-online.com/ksmith.html>. McFarlane, J (ed.) 1994, Ibsen Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Meyer, M 1971, Ibsen: A Biography, Doubleday, New York. Scacco, L 2010 , Ways of Seeing, Marianne Hesk e, S. Wendt (ed.), Skira, in Milano, pp. 51-52. Trnqvist, E 1995, Ibsen A Dolls House, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Urban, W nd, Parallels in A Dolls House, viewed 10 August 2011, <http://department.monm.edu/classics/speel_festschrift/urban.htm>. Weckwerth, W 2004, Playing with Dolls and Houses, viewed 10 August 2011, <http://muse.jhu.edu.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/journals/theater/v034/34.3we ckwerth.html>. Wendt, S (ed.) 2010, Marianne Hes Skira, Milano. ke,

List of Images
Figure 1: Marianne Heske, Manscape (Th Faceless Face of the Masses) e (1976) Source: Wendt, S (ed) 2010, Marianne Heske, Skira, Milano, p. 36. Anselm Kiefer, Lilith am Roten Meer (1990) Source: MM photography (July 2011), Museum of Contemporary Arts, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin. All other images are the photographic property of the author, MM 2011.