the_Ned_James
Hi Ned,
I just googled you. Did you know a surprisingly large percentage of Ned James' google images come from mug shots? You are also a star player in the American football league and one of your alter-ego's was a British man serving in the Antilles war – a quarrel I have to admit I was yet unfamiliar with.
Well, taking from your resume I guess it is safe to assume that none of these images are entirely accurate. Then, even more so, I might not even be addressing a single individual here, and I apologize to all the Swifts now for merely addressing you, Ned, in this writing, but it is by lack of face or names of your backing choir.
Although I remain oblivious of your real identity, you have found one body you are most comfortable to perform through and it was him, Nathaniel Pitt, who extended this invitation to me to write an accompanying text to the 'Ned James festival of Women's werk', and perhaps this may explain a bit of my fascination with your image. Obviously, I feel a bit deprived of having a portrait image of the man who has so generously decided it is about time to celebrate the efforts of women's labor. There is an awkward tension
because the male individual is claiming the poster boy – position to a festival that seems to attempt to offer empowerment to women – but placing a name on an anonymous crowd, to me feels a painful example of ownership, or entitlement.
However - I prefer to not dwell on the rather patronizing premise of this festive occasion. It is true that women's labor, whether manual or intellectual, business or domestic, paid (ergo productive in terms of capitalism) or unpaid, remains under appreciated to date. And this festival is offering an opportunity to let female voices take center stage in articulating ideas about labor, work
and production (and perhaps even leisure) in a debate that historically and still is dominated by men. You, Ned, pointed out that Division of Labour is a solely male outfit, and would welcome some female interference. And there you have it.
The title puzzles though on another level. Although I understand the Ned James-preposition might be due to an uncorrected error - it is my understanding you would have preferred the Division of Labour festival of Women's werk, therefore breaking open Adam Smith's, Karl Marx' and any other great male economists sole primacy over the term, you have very intently coined the 'werk' in the title. Which translates from German rather into production or factory than 'work' or labor, and this makes me wonder what we are actually celebrating here, the output or the efforts? – should we look at what the female gender produces, or how it produces the output. And then, I guess, in such a set up, we are forced to look at our gender-specific capacities.
Well, the whole history of women's labor has been defined by what has been assumed women can or cannot do based on their biological statuses. And sure, going back to the hunter-gatherer theory it makes sense that men of muscle and brawn create safe haven's for womens wombs who need protection. Both genders contribution to society relied on the abilities of their bodies and somewhere along the way this has become perverted, the male muscle equated with a strategic quality and apparently with that a cerebral superiority, and the woman's womb relegated her contribution to society mostly to being a body.
This short observation may sound somewhat bitter and cynical. But the female body still remains highly contested ground, and it is an ongoing debate of who owns 'this body'. So we are looking at the female body as a product. And this brings to mind Miley Cyrus' amazingly skilled VMA performance. The visible dance-act 'Twerk' offered an explanation of the term as deriving from Gesamtkunstwerk, a rather cynical joke which might hold more truth than comfortable. If a Gesamtkunstwerk is 'the fusion of all arts into a single medium of dramatic expression', it is also the work of many hands and Miley certain is the product of an industry. She has made her way into life through the Disney factory and her value is now expressed in how she as a body can be consumed.
The idea of what value our bodies contribute to society have been written quite differently in what we now define as the former West and the former East. In the West the interest in our bodies was to be that unshakable cornerstone in the nuclear family, the bedrock of society, to produce off spring that would eventually contribute to the economy of the country. In a capitalist society this 'production' remained unaccounted for in value, the domestic investment perhaps not intangible but at least incalculable. From sheer necessity for workforce in the East women's bodies were directly inserted in the labor force and economy. But also ideologically, in a society were 'monetary value' was less emphasized and often even fictitious, this might have contributed to a relative sense of gender equality as work in general – also domestic – constituted value, more interestingly it defined a different attitude towards constructing role models and identities.
A few years back, when working for an art center in Rotterdam, where the team was putting together a show investigating pornography as a cultural practice (Bodypoliticx, curator: Florian Waldvogel) a dvd arrived in the mail. Instead of the anticipated queer comedy 'East-side story'.it turned out we had ordered an investigative documentary on the Musicals of the Golden Age behind the Iron Curtain. Although the film dealt mostly with the restrictions of censorship versus the need for entertainment in a tense knot with the required propaganda for productivity, what struck me most was the proud and particular appearance of the female protagonists in the 40 films produced in the Soviet era. Singing to the beat of sowing machines, plows & tractors, hammers and coal; clad in slacks & overalls; overtaking postmen on motorbikes – these women were every bit as powerful, and perhaps sometimes even more than the men. And even though still beautiful – the universal requirement of the silver screen – striving for beauty, fame or love,
was never solely directing their path through the narratives. The social constructs of their countries truly celebrated their labor!
I jump to a quote from the painfully flawed sci-fi flick Repo men, where Jude Law struggles to reclaim the ownership over his own body as his artificial organs are owned by the company he used to work for and chasing him to reclaim them. Only too late the former organ-repossesser reflects: 'A job is not just a job, It's who you are. If you want to change who you are, you have to
change what you do.' We try to resist the idea that our work defines us, but it does lock our position in the global economy, and with that defines our
opportunities, responsibilities, rights and social appreciation. As global economies are shifting – some say downhill – and capitalist structures are being frantically embraced on one hand and challenged on the other through new strategies of bartering
We try to resist the idea that our work defines us, but it does lock our position in the global economy, and with that defines our opportunities, responsibilities, rights and social appreciation. As global economies are shifting – some say downhill – and capitalist structures are being frantically embraced on one hand and challenged on the other through new strategies of bartering and re-appreciation of non-monetized work, can we redefine ourselves? As women, as men, as a community?
And here is my plea: Let's not be daunted by the precariousness of our futures, we are a part of a social machine, and all take part in this factory of labour. So then, let’s proudly rise to the occasion and: ‘Work it!’
Nathalie Hartjes 2013
Nathalie Hartjes (NL) is Director of MAMA, a platform for visual culture in Rotterdam. She studied Art History at Leiden University. Until recently, she worked at the Appel Arts Centre, initially as Coordinator of the Curatorial Programme, alongside which she soon became involved in the development of the Gallerist Programme, which she coordinated from its inception in 2012. From 2014 to 2015, she was Artistic Director of Nieuwe Vide in Haarlem. She was General Coordinator of Comité van Roosendaal and worked for Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, in various capacities. Nathalie Hartjes writes occasionally about art and publishes fiction whenever the opportunity arises.