ABSTRACT
TH I S C H A P T E R , W R I T T E N I N 2007, addresses memories that push the boundaries of museum representation. I begin with a memory of my own. The memory is from almost ten years ago, and it is set in an art history seminar exploring inscriptions of the feminine and strategies for registering experiences for which there is no adequate social signifying system. The group discussed psychological processes, desires, fantasies, corporeal sensations, and quotidian practices that fall within the range of experiences that Julia Kristeva has called “women’s time”: sorority, maternity, lesbianism and other spectrums of desire between and among women. 1 Our professor chose her words carefully, reminding us that, because of Section 28 of the 1998 UK Local Government Act, she could not be perceived as promoting homosexuality in the classroom, even though she was openly lesbian in her personal and public life. 2 Ordinarily reticent in class, on this occasion I felt compelled to speak about a photograph I had recently encountered. The fi nal pages of Renate Stendhal’s Gertrude Stein: Words and Pictures, contain an image of Alice B. Toklas standing in front of the famous 1906 portrait of Gertrude Stein by Pablo Picasso. Its caption reads: Picture at an exhibition. Paris, 1955. 3 As I spoke to the group, inelegantly trying to describe the photograph and to articulate why it resonated so deeply with me, I found myself increasingly moved. Flustered, I stopped my comment midway and sat down, frustrated and slightly choked up. Sitting back, I was surprised – and embarrassed – by the extent to which this photograph had affected me.
