My initial research question (2005-2010) was: How and when did women's milk become invisible in contemporary art? And: what are the gender attributions are connected to this process of shifting meanings? The theoretical and experimental, practical aspects inform and are conditional to each other: the practical part tests the results of my research through artistic works and exhibitions. My research, on the other hand, also changes as a result of the experiences made and knowledge gained on the practical level. It is important to reflect on the fact that, through my theoretical and artistic work, I myself also contribute to the production of the meaning of 'milk' and 'breast milk'.
The methods of practically applied discourse analysis and experimental drawing, which is always also involved in the production of its research subject, offer the opportunity to critically reflect on my own involvement in the discourse. In the following, I describe the results of my research into the artistic use of women's milk and the reactions to it. 'Women's milk' is not to be equated with 'breast milk'. The term 'breast milk' describes a substance that plays a special role in a specific relationship between two people: the relationship between mother and biological child and its nourishment. I use the word 'women's milk' where the artistic works examined are about using the milk produced by a mother in the biological sense - i.e. a woman who has given birth - for a purpose other than feeding her own infant.
Reinventions of Wheels. (Channeling Judy Chicago)
Artworks that either use women's milk as a substance or imply it have been appearing frequently in the art world since the early 90s. Since that time the subject of “bodily fluids in art” has received new attention, especially in the US American context.Corresponding works can be roughly divided into those in which “real” human milk becomes visible, decontextualized and those that merely simulate or depict human milk. Works in which “real" or actual human milk is presented are the “milk pictures” by Jiri Dokoupil (1989), but women's milk is not offensively visible in them. Dokoupil soaked baby clothes (onesies and such) in women's milk for the pictures, placed the clothes on white paper and then heated it so that the barely recognizable dried white milk turned dark and became visible as an imprint. The dark-colored milk looks like a light sepia drawing. Without the accompanying text, physical origin of the material used remains hidden to the uninitiated.
The documentation of the performance “American Chestnut” by Karen Finley (1992), on the other hand, shows the process of expressing milk from her breasts. The origin and “authenticity” of breastmilk is thus apparent to viewers. The installation “Histories of Human Flesh”, by Elizabeth Newman (1993), comprises exhibited containers of women's milk, which are labeled as such, the pictures “Hover” and “Reflection” by Maggie Tobin, (2004/5), incorporate the women's milk into oil paint and make it an invisible and inseparable part of the traditional image of a landscape. Works that associate or simulate women's milk as a material or simulate it are, for example, Laurie Long's “Painting Bra” from 2004, which expresses white paint from a bra onto a canvas using a complicated apparatus. Other artistic works involve or parody the iconography of the marketing and food advertising, such as the “Lactation Station” by Jess Dobkin (2006), the work “Chocolate” by Toi Sennhauser (2005), and Veronique Malherbe's homemade chocolate with breast milk entitled “Breastlay” (1999).
Media used by the artists include video, photography, painting and installation as well as graphics published on the Internet presenting breastfeeding women from various different perspectives. In some of the works listed here, the historical rehabilitation of (public) breastfeeding since around 1950 in Eurocentric Western cultures plays a minor role, albeit an explicit one. A much greater concern of the artists seems to be to present different views on post-modern or post modern or post-Fordist approaches to motherhood and to reflect on its embedded and embodied contradictions.
Overview of my artistic research into breastmilk in art through 2014: Experiments into "making visible"
I exhibited my own artistic research into human milk and art in the form of a “Mammamil-ICH AG” in a temporary pop up store-front gallery in Neukölln, Berlin (2004), and in the off space gallery Kurt im Hirsch (2004), Berlin. I carried out a milk pumping and feeding to the audience performance at the Futura Gallery Prague (catalogue includes a text by Eva Neklyaeva 1995-2015.undo.net/it/mostra/19504) and showed it in the context of an interdisciplinary exhibition with biomedical scientists at the Berlin Medical History Museum of the Charité, Berlin, in the form of a film at the Schafler Gallery, New York, and within the context of a self-organized group exhibition at the alternative project space arttransponder, Berlin. I developed an ironing to visibility performance for a group exhibition at the 2B Gallery, Budapest, as an installation at Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Bethanien, Berlin (Beyond Re/Production kunstraumkreuzberg.de/programm/beyond-re-production-mothering-dimensionen-der-sozialen-reproduktion-im-neoliberalismus/), in the exhibition series “How to Show”, showcasing work by the then new artistic research PHD Program of Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (project space okk, Berlin), and as resident artist at the University of California in San Diego. I presented the work in various contexts, in the form of a lecture at the Goethe Institute, Budapest, I exchange with Winfried Menninghaus in the exhibition “American Orifice” (curated by Rajkamal Kahlon for artttransponder, Berlin), and at the University of California in San Diego.
Mimikry
As part of the “Mammamil ICH-AG” I produced an info-mercial - a supposedly informative advertisement with with content conveyed by “experts” - as a film in which I the use of breast milk as the ultimate artistic authenticity-guaranteeing substance. The film was shown in 2005 at arttransponder, Berlin. I wrote the text recorded for the infomercial in a non-public performance on paper and canvas, ironed it and installed the work in further exhibitions.
Comparing milky visibility
Two works by prominent artists Karen Finley and Jiri Dokoupil achieving visibility in the European and US American mainstream art context dealing with the female body, “fruit” (Dokoupil also worked with fruit juice, and Finley used yams and sweet potatoes in her performances) and its fluids, including breast milk. are Dokoupil's “Breast Milk Pictures” (1989-1990) and Finley's performance “American Chestnut” (1993). Works by Heide Pawelsik, Maggie Tobin, Jess Dobkin, Veronique Malherbe, Elizabeth Newman have also been shown in gallery exhibitions, albeit more in their immediate vicinity. Their “visibility” has so far unfolded in the supposedly “softer” alternative art context.