Katrin Freisager

So I want to write about this work because when I initially see it I'm uninterested. I don't really like it off the bat. Abstractions using the human body tend to bore me because I feel like I've seen those pictures so many times. I'm going to try though, I'm going to talk about the work in an attempt to understand it before I dismiss it.

The first thing I notice in the work is the bold disruptions the artist has placed throughout the entire length of the frame. The foremost limbs create a visual entity so strongly out of place that I am made aware of the space the photograph was made in. Immediately after that realization, I notice the soft Robin's egg blue of the backdrop on which these fleshly amalgamations take form.  Again, this color provides a sense of depth (unlike something warm, like orange, which would collapse the scene into a studio), but it also just looks nice by responding to the reds, oranges, and yellows of the skin, of which there is a lot. One thing I do genuinely like about the work is how quickly the artist references the space the photo was made in without making it too direct. This is something that interests me deeply, a photograph as a stage, and a "photograph that knows it's a photograph".

There is something grotesque or off-putting about piles of arms and legs sitting comfortably in a light blue space. This juxtaposition I feel is the beginning of the conceptual side of these works. I'm not sure exactly what is being shown to me, but I can now use this initial confusion as the framework for the rest of my questions. Also, all the bodies seem to belong to white girls of a "normal" build. I suppose that makes sense though, as the artist is European. 

The clothing that the women are wearing is interesting. Lot's of nylon looking stuff, so I think of dancers. I don't want to think that though, because that's such I silly way to approach dance in terms of photography; a sliding mess of body parts. Because of that, I don't believe that the artist is trying to do that, so I am still unsure of many of the artists choices. One thing that I do notice about the clothes is that they don't seem to change. Neither does the color, or the lighting. Because these elements don't vary throughout the photos, I'm led to believe that they are all of the same environment and timeframe. Is this a form of documentation? Is the art not the photograph, but the "sculpture"? Calling it a sculpture implies objectification, which seems evident because no faces are shown, only bits of bodies. Lots of legs, too, which are considered sexy parts of women. Weird. Uncomfortable. That's how I feel. I feel like the artist is inviting me to join in a morbid game of Twister that I can't involve myself in as a guy. Now I'm on a tangent, and my mind is making a million connections. A true can of worms has been opened, each one coloring the work in a different way, slowly closing me off from anything the artist had intended to communicate. Does that mean I've failed the work? Has the work failed me? 

I don't know.