Janine Von Thungen

sculptures and sound
2RC Rome - 2003

Installation of the exhibition

2003

Installation of the exhibition

2003

Installation of the exhibition

2003

Installation of the exhibition

2003

Curated by Marianna Vecellio

The times - we parted - the breath - and I -

three times - did not want to go -

but he tried to move the dull fan

that the waters - were trying to stop.

There are many women artists who have decided to put the complex life / death relationship as the aim of their research and to tackle the theme of birth on their creative journey.

Eva Hesse, Kiki Smith, Rebecca Horn, Louise Bourgeois, all share the same path of women and creators, in a mutual becoming one in the other. Through feminine modalities, they examine uterine enigmas, traverse the loops of working with matter. They tear, they violate, they suffer the body. By embodying an all-female ability, they become aware of the courageous choice to leave instinct aside and learn to manage the commitment to create life in a detached way. The sensual resins of Eva Hesse, the scalps of Kiki Smith, the fabulous musical machines of Rebecca Horn, the puppets of Louise Bourgeois seem to tell similar stories, through the most disparate languages, the mystery and drama of a universe so strongly anchored to memories feminine to be repeated cyclically first in us and then in creation

.Three times - the waves threw me afloat -

then they took me - like a ball -

then they showed blue faces to my face -

and they pushed off a sail

that crawled away - and I liked to see -

to think - while I was dying -

how nice to watch something

with above - human faces -

In her long career as a sculptor and with the aid of multiple means of expression, such as photography, sound, language and various materials, latex, terra cotta, bronze, Janine von Thüngen stages creation. as a mother, aware, archetypal, ancestral, eternal, secondly as an artist, in an incessant relationship of exchange, with all the competent responsibilities.

Marlene Dumas, says “I paint because I'm a woman”. The message is evident, of a disconcerting clarity. I paint because it is a female necessity, because I am a woman, because being a woman means creating.

Janine von Thüngen sculpts, elaborates the material, chooses the means of making, to give rise to the inner visions of her being a woman. Wasser Kinder is a work that is the result of an introspective experience, of investigation, of immersion within ourselves. The element itself suggests it: water, recurring in the artist's work.

Janine von Thüngen fills an empty room with eight identical display cases. Each case houses an object. The eye lingers, deciphering its meaning, revealing the contours of a soft feeling. Nine heads of increasing size, eight in the display cases one on the ground, transform the room into a magical place, entrusting the viewer with the language to understand and investigate himself in the room of memory and transformation. Nine heads like nine children. A path made of passages, stages, sounds, images ... whispers, trains, alarms, love, screams, tears ... There is no violence, there is no separation, there is no drama, the dimension of the installation leave aside the tear from the body. The tone is not serious, as it contemplates the dimension of the game.

Wasser Kinder is a kindergarten, an imaginary and private place of each of us: a sphere of the intimate, where attracted and rejected by the soft perception of ourselves, we see the memories of a common past and find in the great head on the ground a hiding place. and refuge.

The waves dozed off - the breath - no -

The winds - like children - quieted down -

Then dawn kissed the chrysalis -

And I got up - and lived - (Emily Dickinson)