Jarden Berghout
Excerpt from the exhibition concept
Gender Mainstream Art Project
From the personal point of view
The Gender Mainstream Project is an artistic examination of the gender discussion, which now - at the beginning of the 21st century following the early emergence of isolated feminist energies throughout the world – has evolved into a political issue and led to legislation within Europe. The academic papers on the topic provide an insight into the intricate complexity of the issue. Within the framework of this thematic area, I - as an artist and exhibition organiser - am presenting gender relations in pictorial form from my personal vantage point. As a young mother, I wondered: “Why did no one prepare me for that role and tell me what the task of guiding a young human being into this world would demand of me?” There was no prior warning from older generations about the tremendous changes that would be triggered in one’s life. Suddenly, I was faced with that daunting task and to all intents and purposes I was left all on my own. How can gender-specific physical attributes classify people into specific social expectation categories and then desert them so completely, leaving them alone with the important societal task of bringing up a child? The fathers of the children – the majority of whom have jobs – work between 40 and 60 hours a week for career-related reasons. In this day and age, the business world regards that as being a matter of course. A part-time child-minding solution would have been my greatest wish, so that I could have reconciled my profession as an artist with motherhood, which is what I had wished to do: but a good child-minding option was/is as rare as winning the lottery jackpot.
Through my new role I met many other mothers who were experiencing the same thing. We developed friendships of convenience as well as close friendships. Among other things, I became friends with two female doctors. One of them had three children and the other four. Both women doctors brought up their children with a great deal of dedication. Their husbands were also physicians and were thus able to afford being the sole breadwinners for a family of 5 and/or 6. During the same period, I met a colleague of my husband who was also a physician. But she had decided against having children and in favour of her career and worked as a professor at the university. In the meantime, all of the children of the two female doctors have finished school. The professional knowledge of those two female physicians is now out of date and it is very difficult for them to go back to work in their profession. Their seven children are all studying and the dedicated childrearing efforts of the two mothers have also borne positive fruit in the form of the children’s social competencies. It is to be anticipated that the seven children will work to generate the pension of the childless professor. Unfortunately, their two mothers will have to make due without any adequate pension appropriate to their achievements.
Personally, my situation is quite similar. I have devoted myself to the work of childrearing and caring for my invalid mother with a great deal of commitment, and I have only been able to carve out some small measure of quiet time and freedom for my artistic work by means of the greatest possible organisational efforts. During a work-related discussion while preparing for an exhibition with James Turrell I suddenly blurted out the remark that “my daughter was my masterpiece”. Why had I said that? Did that express everything that there was to say? Was it an apology for all the works of art that I had not been able to paint? Some time later - as of 2002 - the picture series called “In The Cosmos Of Kitchen Cinnamon Stars Will Burn Out” - “Im Kosmos der Küche verglühen die Zimtsterne”, which is part of the Gender Project, was created.
First of all, doing childrearing work should not financially lead to impoverishment at retirement age and – secondly – good childminding facilities finally have to be created. When that has been implemented politically, then it will also be possible for enough children to be born without looming existential fears for one’s livelihood. Men as well as women in equal measure would be able to decide feely in favour of doing family-related work.
“I have a dream” (that already heralded the beginning of a socio-political appeal once before) that one day the roles that are allocated to women, men and couples on the basis of gender attributes will disappear in the most various of societies, religions, classes of society and traditions and that self-determination with regard to an individual’s personal plans for his or her life will be possible, regardless of gender-specific attributes and without financial disadvantages by the freely chosen roles. That freedom of decision and social security is the prerequisite for the so-called “Creative Class” (as defined by Richard Florida), which constitutes an important foundation for all well-functioning societies of the future, thus enabling people to decide in favour of children and to remain a calculable variable for futurologists.
The artistic Gender Mainstream Project is divided into four chapters:
- The roles of women at the transition between the 20th and the 21st centuries.
- The roles of men at the transition between the 20th and the 21st centuries.
- Couples at the transition between the 20th and the 21st centuries.
- Gender Mainstream in 30 years.
The project has been realised using the classical vocabulary of painting. This is because only classical painting allows limitless diversity and multi-layered illustration of the contemporary roles of the sexes. Furthermore, painting also makes it possible to communicate complex themes and plots by way of emotions and consequently to reach a large number of recipients with a point of view that has almost been lost: contemplation about contemporary and visionary themes by means of the immortal art of painting.
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