Hoerengracht – The Red Light District meets the National Gallery
In the often strained relationship between modern art and a dubious public, art installations have created pivotal moments. Damien Hirst’s series of bisected animals, frozen in formaldehyde, really kicked off the modern debate over such large and fundamentally unpleasant installations should be considered art. Tracey Emin’s controversial pieces, most notably ‘My Bed’ did no more than move everyday items into a gallery space, creating a suggestion of the mundane as art that many found a bit hard to swallow.
But I have been in London recently, and following the opening of Tate Modern, the use of the gallery’s giant Turbine Hall as an installation space has once again sparked public imagination for installation artwork. That’s because its installations have worked as interactive pieces that attract and connect with an audience – the giant metal slides of Carsten Höller’s Test Side being the most famous example. Those looking from inside the art world, however, may have began to mutter about the fact people were no longer approaching installations with their artistic values in mind. It is the goal of any installation to bridge the often cavernous divide between high art and accessibility.
Hoerengracht, an installation piece created by Ed and Nancy Kienholz, is currently on display at
, the piece is a recreation of a block in
Hoerengracht – literally Whore’s Canal – is certainly an unusual installation, large enough to become lost in but reduced in scale to the point that it feels cramped and otherworldly. As you pass around its two blocks, you stumble across windows into hidden worlds. Each show a prostitute, frozen in their living space, which is shrunk down so that they are little more than display cases. These mannequins, 11 in total, are seen dressing, smoking, and reading magazines – the more unpleasant aspect of their lives are hidden behind closed flock curtains in the upper windows.
The women, cast from real bodies but with separate heads ripped from shop window mannequins, are glazed with the same translucent gloop that is splattered on windows and walls inside the rooms. Their expressionless faces peer out from cookie tins, an element that jars with the rest of the scene; as an attempt to create a ‘mind and body’ debate, it is effective but lacks subtlety. The cold, motionless figures are instead given new life by details in the background; tiny artefacts which brilliantly illustrate the comfort of individuality in such a hellish, commoditised environment.
Hoerengracht’s great success lies in how it conveys its unpalatable message in a way the viewer can relate to – the neat bicycles and leaves along the pathways give the whole scene a sense of fantastic realism. Also, anybody who has visited the real red light district in
More direct than many recent installation pieces, yet complex enough not to be undervalued, Hoerengracht shows how effective the often derided field of installation art can be. It is not perfect, and it does not carry a message that is especially potent or original; but it is diverting, unsettling and superbly put together. On Saturday, the combination of arty types peering intently through the misty windows and tourists wandering excitedly between the buildings was testament to Hoerengracht’s ability to unite the viewing public in appreciation.
Hoerengracht by Ed and Nancy Kienholz can be seen at the National Gallery until February 27th.
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