MARGIT'S SPEECH AT THE OPENING OF THE BROKEN MUSES AT BLUEPRINT PARTNERS ON OCTOBER 22, 2008

It is an honour to exhibit here and I would like to thank Blueprint partners, in particular Louise, Helena, Mireille and Carla for making the idea of an exhibition a reality.

This is my 10th exhibition and the first one is devoted solely to what I call Broken Muses. The broken mannequins you see around you here are my main subject. Sometimes people ask me “why is that, why mannequins and why in particular broken ones?” At times I just say “because”. It is exactly because they are broken that they fascinate me.

These mannequins are made for a purpose, for being displayed, for helping to sell clothes and other gadgets. They are made to appeal to the subconscious. They should not be centre stage but pursue that purpose (convince) subtly. One should not focus on them as such and most people never really do. But nevertheless they are often much more human than we think. They age. They go through good and rough times. They lose face. They get hurt. They are dressed up and can’t protest. They are put in places where they probably would not want to be. Some of them are melancholic, others face the world boldly. Some reveal things about themselves that real people try to hide. Sometimes people get mad at others and some are just told to shut up. Some are blind or blinded.

I recently read a story about a married couple [Bernd and Hilla Becher] that spent 40 years on doing nothing else than taking pictures of industrial cooling towers. Often they camped for weeks on industrial sites in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK in order to wait for the right light, the right weather and the ideal circumstances for taking their pictures. When the husband died his last words were “darling, I am so sorry that we are not done yet with all those towers”. In that respect I think I am also not yet done with taking pictures of Broken Muses.

Thank you and have a great evening!

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