"Women at bars"
by Marika Seidler

An evening by Andrea Creutz, Christina Prip, Kirstine Roepstorff, Marika Seidler, Åsa Sonjasdotter og Lisa Strömbeck.

In April of 97, we arranged an evening "Women at Bars" at a bar "The Moose" in Copenhagen. We were invited by the artist Ingar Dragset and Michael Elmgreen. During the year, they had arranged a number of happenings under the name of "Det døde Eldsdyr", the dead Moose. In the beginning, they invited Kirstine Roepstorff to make an exhibition under the name of " Women at Bars". Kirstine asked us to participate in this exhibition and in unison, we decided to turn this exhibition into a happening for women. We focused on the issue of what it is like to be on a bar. How individuals fill out and interact in the space that exists in a bar. Our focal point was to draw the parallel between women's presence in a bar to that of the opening of an art exhibition.

When we attend art exhibitions, we often find that we are in the minority in comparison to the men. Moreover, we stand alone while our colleagues have men of all ages and generations present in this art world to use as reflection. Consequently, we decided to arrange a special evening for women to create a different atmosphere where women repesented the majority.

This evening's focus was to meet women groups and establish a better contact and communication between woman artists and the various generations. Furthermore, we wanted to cast light on the fact that there exists women at the Art Academy who are interested in feminism and who wish to make a career of art. Our guest list included the following women organisations: " Kvinde Netværk", "Kvinfo", "Vagina Dentata", a group of women from the "Modern Culture Department" at Copenhagen's Amager University and a group of older women from the old people's political party "C-holdet". The other participants were established artists, art historians, students from the Art Academy, and some of our mothers.

Our queries about the the evening's repertoire evolved into two models. One was to debate women artists stature in the Danish art environment whereby a panel should be constructed. This forum would consist of the members of "Kvindfo", the "Modern Culture Department", established artists, curators, art historians and museum inspectors. The second model was to envision the gathering of the invitees as a picture on women filling space.

The other debates which ensured was the question as to whether men were to be invited or not. As we wished to experience women as a mass in this bar, men would disrupt this picture however, and would reduce these women to an object for the male gaze. At the same time, a panel discussion would take too long to realize, it would take at least 3 months of preperation, and furthermore, we had little time with which to work with. There were some women in the group who felt that it wasn't their job to create a forum for an art political debate. We compromised on the evening's schedule, it would consist of entertainment and a short speech which gave an overview of the different events which had occurred at the academy. There had been a seminar on "Feministic art history" and then there was the matter of Airconditions special approach to the up and coming foreign guest teaching program for 97-98. Right after this introduction, the performer Jannike Grut and DJ Malin Waak were to provide entertainment. Finally, we decided to invite men as they would be in the minority and thus, would have no impact on this gathering.

This evening proved to be both enjoyable and enlightening. We succeeded in gathering women of all age groups together and one resulting effect was even a group exhibition "Insomnia" at "Kvinfo" which occured on the 10th October, 1997. This soirée entailed poetry reading by Christina Hesselholdt and the showing of the film "Royal Blues" by Lotte Svendsen.

Overall, I wished the evening "Women at bars" had been more structured as I missed a more direct form for debate in regards to the presence of women in the art world and some of the steps we could take to make these conditions better. The more I think about it, I find that this problematic seems to be way over my head, and it would leave me to choose between working with politics and my own artistic endeavors. An unfortunate choice. However, I hope that this work will be carried out by young art historians, and that my presence as an artist will lend a visible hand to this struggle.