How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb looks at ritual, sexuality and cultural mores. Rituals are procedures, which we use to transform one reality into another and therefore make it safe. Preparing food is a complex and messy business and here we examine the tradition of butchery. This work explores the tension between linear step-by-step instructions and the raw reality of butterflying a leg of lamb. Emily Dickinson refers in her poem to the parts of a woman that can be bloody, ferocious and strong. Acknowledging cultural convention and not without irony, she begs the readers pardon, for giving voice to her observations.
The sacrificial Lamb has strong religious connotations as the substitute emblem for human sacrifice. The image of woman as pure and innocent has to be altered in order for her reality to be re-negotiated.
‘How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb I’ 1/2 (diptych)
Cibachrome colour prints each individually mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 64 x 80cm
‘Napkins VI’
Cibachrome colour print mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 56 x 70cm
‘How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb I’
Diptych: two Cibachrome colour prints each individually mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 64 x 80 cm
‘How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb II’ 1/2 (diptych)
Cibachrome colour prints each individually mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 64 x 80cm
‘Napkins V’
Cibachrome colour print mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 56 x 70cm
‘How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb II’
Diptych: two Cibachrome colour prints each individually mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 64 x 80 cm
‘How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb III’ 1/2 (diptych)
Cibachrome colour prints each individually mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 64 x 80cm
‘Napkins IV’
Cibachrome colour print mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 56 x 70cm
‘How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb III’
Diptych: two Cibachrome colour prints each individually mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 64 x 80 cm
‘How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb V’ 1/3 (triptych)
Cibachrome colour prints each individually mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 72 x 100 cm
‘How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb V’ 2/3 (triptych)
Cibachrome colour prints each individually mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 72 x 100 cm
‘How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb V’ 3/3 (triptych)
Cibachrome colour prints each individually mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 72 x 100 cm
‘How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb V’
Triptych: three Cibachrome colour prints each individually mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 72 x 100 cm
‘How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb IV’ 1/2 (diptych)
Cibachrome colour prints each individually mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 156 x 110 cm
‘Napkins II’
Cibachrome colour print mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 56 x 70cm
‘How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb IV’
Diptych: two Cibachrome colour prints each individually mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 64 x 80 cm
‘Napkins I’
Cibachrome colour print mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 56 x 70cm
‘Napkins III’
Cibachrome colour print mounted on alluminium under acrylic glass, 56 x 70cm
Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, 2001 >>
Installation View I
Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, 2001
Installation View II
Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, 2001
Installation View II
Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, 2001
‘Since to be feminine is to have qualities that are the opposite or negation, of ideal masculine qualities, for a long time it was hard to elaborate the attractiveness of the strong woman in other than mythic or allegorical guise’
– Susan Sontag
‘How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb’ • video installation • 7:48
