Primero: El origen del mundo de Coubert luego una artistas contemporánea lo recrea. Tanja Ostojic.
Tanja Ostojic. After Courbet, L´origin du Monde, 2004.
Description:
Presented on the rotating billboards in the frame of EuroPart exhibition in the public space in Vienna December 2005/January 2006. The work was removed after 2 days as a result of enormous media scandal at the point when the Austrian Prime minister was about to overtake the chair in the EU. Over hundred of articles and over thousandth of readers comments witness about it in a very interesting and complex way. The poster 3,5 X 4m size was reerected on the fasade of Forum Stadt Park, Graz from January-March 2006. Over periods in history nudity is revolving in the public mirror, but taken for its symbolic value in society it frequently served as a carrier for another message in the first stance. Besides the composition and the reference to the title (L´origin du Monde, “Birth of the World”, oil on canvas, 1866, 46 X 55 cm, by Gustav Courbet), beyond the image my reference to Courbet is appending directly to his position as an artist, who was concerned with the class struggle during the time of the Paris Commune and believed in an emacipatory role of art in society. His art works have been banned from shows and he was as well arrested primarily of political engagement. The painting l´origin du monde remained hidden more then 120 years in private collections and is on the display in the Museé d´Orsay in Paris since 1980-ies. In a consequent thought I believe this recent interpretation of mine wouldn’t have provoked the mass media scandal if the blue underwear wouldn’t feature the EU flag on it at such a problematic moment in Austrian political reality. In the tradition of my earlier works like “Crossing border series”, and the “Integration Project” 2000-2005, I continue my critical view on the politics of exclusion and the issues of bio-politics in the EU. The body of the women on the picture – myself - belongs to somebody that does not belong to the EU territory, somebody that speaks from the migrant women perspective and has been discriminated because of not being citizen of this elitist political & economical space.
