ABSTRACT
From her first major works, Kirsten Justesen has combined formal experimentation with feminist engagement. As their generic titles indicate, her first major works, Sculpture I and Sculpture II, from 1968 conduct a critical analysis of the basic conventions of sculpture and the artistic use of women's bodies. Justesen is one of the first Danish practitioners of body art. She has consistently used her body as a tool to explore the material qualities and social conditions of women's lives from pregnancy and housework to mythology, political activism, and feminist protest. Justesen was educated as a sculptor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, but her conceptual grounding and her feminist optics have carried her through many different media and materials from photography, books, magazines, and film to live events, urban planning and activism, stage design, and museum exhibitions. She took an active part in the Danish feminist movement of the 1970s and has contributed to several shared feminist ventures, such as the experimental series of feminist tableaux called Damebilleder (Images of Women) in 1970, the film Tornerose var et vakkert barn (Sleeping Beauty, with fellow artist Jytte Rex) in 1971, and the large feminist exhibition held at the Charlottenborg Kunsthal in 1975. She was one of the editors of the self-organised feminist magazine Kvinder (Women), 1975–1984, who gave the publication an unusually experimental visual profile. This essay charts the development of Justesen's conceptual and feminist work in different media and through various collaborative projects from 1968 until the end of the 1970s.
