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pussy



imgage illustrated by me from Aurel Schmidt's publication PUSSY

A CRITICAL VIEW OF AUREL SCHMIDT'S PUSSY
In collaboration with Purple Magazine, Aurel Schmidt has published "Pussy - the Aurel Schmidt Purple book". At one point, reading this article you may look up in disbelief wondering if I meant "In collaboration with Vice magazine" but, no. It is as you can tell from the ever so imaginative title a lot about pussy, mainly Aurel Schmidt's pussy and some other people's breasts and cocks. The introduction written by Alex Gartenfeld tells of Aurel's so called "heart-on-her-sleeve feminism culled from 70's and 80's-era bad punk poetry" and goes on with a slightly critical yet very flattering intro to this questionable piece of art?

The "book" , which functions more as a photographic album, opens with photographs of her mother and father from the 80's. Is there a need for this background? Do we need to see Aurel's father playing with baby Aurel in the sand 1983 before we can see her pussy? The first picture we see of Aurel is of her and a friend "playing dress up" 1991, with giant balloons stuck down their tops posing as porn stars. Next page is Aurel on the night of her graduation 2000 with a bottle of sparkling wine shoved between her thighs looking what i can only assume to be meant as seductively towards the camera. Again Aurel seems to aspire to evoke some stereotypical porn star attribute.

The book follows with a hand written note where Aurel describes her ideal man "he is so slick + sleezy + soo sexy, I've never seen someone so sexual without being a slut". Next to it; a photo of Aurel, reproducing a photo seen on the earlier pages of Aurel's modelling mother, 1987. But even in the mother's photograph there is a somewhat haunting quality, despite the stereotypical 80's hairdo and mishmash outfit which Aurel fails to mimic. In Aurel's case we get to see classic outfit post pose, leg up to show off the boot and jumper down one shoulder keeping sex appeal, whilst her long lovely blond locks caress half of her face. There would be no surprise in turning the page and finding her stark naked straddling a log looking like bark rubbing against her privates is just oh so glorious. she doesn't, i guess she didn't think of that.. I can't help feeling like she's such a con, like if at any moment she is to break her pose and wonder how long she has to keep up this farce until she gets famous. Which you have to say, when Purple Magazine gives out one of your publications with every magazine, is just around the corner. I'm guessing she's happy oiling herself up with menstrual blood until she gets there.

It is actually pretty tiring writing a review of this publication since i would hope that it is blatantly obvious.

If not then we turn the page and tada as a cherry on the cake that is art school fail number one, stands Aurel Schmidt squeezing out some menstrual blood from a tampon dragging it from her fanny up towards her navel, looking down upon it like a curious little child. Only to have on the next page, made a heart of dried menstrual blood on her belly which she is now showing us with a childish pride, crooked smile and bloody hands. oh and yes, on the picture next to her lies a naked guy and behind him some kind of religious painting ( you didn't see that one coming, did you, cock and Jesus, 101 on how to provoke, also in the art student handbook).

Then follows some pages of her kissing a guy, a guy sitting on her face, her sitting in a leopard clad bed in a leopard patterned slip holding a cuddly toy, cause she likes to show her fanny, but you know, she's still so fragile.

Then some more dudes in underwear, some grabbing their cocks, some girls showing their boobs and what i can only assume toothpaste masking as cum, no cum is that white. She wees in public, make some cock-art with cucumbers and shows off a bottle of champagne stuck between ass cheeks with a touch of cum on. I would hope as an intelligent audience you have got it at this point, but none the less let me give you a clue; cock, pussy, breasts, cum, phallic vegetables, cock, cum, breasts, pussy. the end.

I would have been able to look at this a bit more objectively if it wasn't so fucking terrible. This whole book is like that one hilarious scene in Ghost World with the tampon in the cup. It is hard to rely on Purple Magazine to make the difference as Olivier Zahm's main focus in life is with just those parts, pussy, cock, breasts, but I would hope that this is taken for what, I hope, it is; one big joke.

AND THE RESPONSE:

(I got various emails from artists who did not allow me to publish their response)

TOURIST magazine got some feedback on the AUREL SCHMIDT article which we are only so happy to share with you (unedited):
Which we have now been told we are not allowed to publish. We assumed that since the person in question had such strong opinions about the article he wouldn't mind sharing them with you, readers... He did. We apologise to the commenter for publicising his email.

However here is my reply and below you can find Alex Gartenfeld's very interesting responce.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

RE: mag feature‏
From:sanna berger
Sent:Thursday, May 27, 2010 9:32:25 AM
To: anonymous artist #1xxxxxxxx

hi again! of course not, i'm happy that you write your opinion. i am trying to get a comment section in place on every article so that anyone can speak their mind.. but it's hard when you're building a site from scratch.

anyway,

im not sure how to reply. with one short answer or with a defence to each of your sentences but i will do my best. i don't know if it isn't clear in my last sentece that i think that there is a strong possibility that this is in fact one big private joke between aurel and olivier. but anyway, that isn't really the point. every word i wrote came from my opinions. it wouldnt matter if aurel is cool or lovely or nice or smart or all of the things, if she was my best friend i would still have the same opinion of the publication. i have women around me everywhere who works with art and who have tackled the subject of nudity (both "vulgar" and "serene") and i stick to my guns that i dont think that aurel is portraying any of these subjects in a good way... i believe that there is a special place in hell for women who doesnt help each other and i have no plans in just writing critic infused articles about women in the arts. but these are when you take away everything else, My opinions and that is all that i can write. i have not taken one look at this and gone, this is shit! but i have reacted to it in the way that i have written down...

this is her art. that is great. that is her perogative. she should be nothing but proud of it if this is what she intended to do. at the same time as: this is my opinion of her art. that is great too. it is my perogative and i am proud of this article and it's viewpoint. and i appreciate your opinion!

however i am concerned that it comes off as if i have a conservative pespective which i think is very odd. i don't think that just because you dont see the point in nudity or menstrual fluids or unconventional art as such you are conservative or a prude. i think thats a dangerous territory... i can't see a reason to think that becuase of the plain facts 1. it's a woman 2. it's a young woman trying to find an outlet for her art and thoughts 3. it contains nudity. (3 things i love and try and support) i should instantly take a liking to her piece. i don't like it. but i like alot of art which is far more forcefully unconventional and it has nothing to do with the theme. it is the way that she does it. i can't think that this is good art. and i can only write it from my point of view.

i would be very happy for you to contribute a counter piece to the article offering your point of view. in fact it would be great to have a different view on it. and i would be happy for aurel to read it and i would happily publish any comment she has on my writing or on her art. in fact i may just email the piece to her!

i wasn't forgetting that aurel is a human being and if it wasn't for the fact that she is her art, that she uses herself and her body and her body's fluids to portray her art then i would have written the piece from a different perspective. i have no intentin of being overly hurtful or petty, i have simply stated my view of her use of her own body...

no, it is direct, but that is great! i am happy that you felt compelled. i do it all the time. and i hope that my answer is sufficient. otherwise i am happy for you to counter my opinion!

best sanna ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

We are waiting now for a responce and will send a link to the article to AUREL SCMIDT. (see below)

TOURIST magazine feature‏
From: sanna berger (sanna@touristmagazine.co.uk)
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2010 10:02:37 AM
To: info@aurelschmidt.com
hello aurel!
hope you are well. my name is sanna and i have just started a magazine called TOURIST.
our first issue is up on www.touristmagazine.co.uk
i have written a very critical article about your publication - PUSSY.
you can find it here http://www.touristmagazine.co.uk/text_pussy.html
you can also find a discussion between me and an artist named xxxxxx about the publication here
http://www.touristmagazine.co.uk/blog/?id=24
where he feels that i have been conservative and misogynous in my opinions of your art, and i have replied.
i think it would be great to hear your opinion on both the article and the discussion as i don't, by writing the article, undermine you as an artist who's view point i appreciate (the same as xxxxxx's). but as i am sure you can appreciate, in turn, i think that it is very important to be allowed to remain critical to a piece of art that you don't appreciate rather than celerate and uphold it, maybe because of other reasons (such as it being a purple publication or that you are a young, beautiful female artist).

either way...
best
sanna
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I got an email back from Alex Gartenfeld, Online Editor for Art in America/Interview who wrote the introduction to Aurel's publication.

RE: Aurel Schmidt Review‏
From: Alex Gartenfeld
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2010 6:36:14 PM
To: sanna@touristmagazine.co.uk

Dear Sanna,

Thank you for taking the time to consider Aurel Schmidt's Pussy publication for Purple Magazine, and the introduction I wrote for that insert. It is promising that writers are looking critically at artworks published in media as diverse as lifestyle and fashion magazines. This is the first time that Schmidt has executed a body of photographic works, or published them. It's exiting then that your interest was piqued.

Your critique rests on an interesting point: you convincingly introduce a tacit 2permission" in the context of Schmidt's work, and the manner by which she foregrounds the more "pornographic" works with images of her family. I would go so far as to say that she asks for "indulgence" and that she asks on behalf of these photographs, her drawings, and her identity and personae as an artist.

Then I would ask that you consider what Schmidt is asking permission for. To me, the worrisome part of your response was the section ("you didn't see that one coming") that conflated Schmidt's strategies with shock. This section of the book has everything to with the scatological conditions of contemporary self-representation; those conditions do not include a surprise or shock at the material facticity of the artist's identifiably female and feminine body.

In the "response" section of your online publication you allude very incisively to the relationship between Olivier Zahm and Schmidt‹that this project depicts "one big private joke between aurel and olivier." In your original review you occupy an imagined subjectivity for Schmidt, asking "how long she has to keep up this farce until she gets famous[?]"

I think it is very sophisticated of you to recognize, without knowing either Zahm or Schmidt, that this project deals with the unwritten contract between editor and artist.

There is, for one, a leap of faith that an editor makes when an artist is looking to publish an unproven (even un-produced) body of work.

I would ask that you look further, and consider: 1. That Schmidt made this body of work having already achieved a certain amount of notoriety for portraying herself in Purple and in Purple's nightlife photography as a provocative young artist; 2. That Purple is a magazine and an organizing body that represents and addresses a niche audience, but which diffuses into a larger commercial audience; 3. That Schmidt operates in a context that she and her peers know to be conveyed as aspirational, in which self-exposure and self-revelation should not be confused, and are each stylized; 4. That Schmidt¹s photographs emerge from the genre of nightlife photography, but are "messy," as you effectively describe, albeit sharing in the visual language (and some of the subjects) of Zahm's photography.

I hope that you'll reconsider Schmidt's photographs, both in terms of their context and in terms of the type of "permission" that Schmidt is asking for as a young woman and a young artist. Schmidt's deployments of her family's photographs do operate as a reflection on the conventions of shared memory, and the circulation of intimate imagery (or projections of intimacy). There is surprising similarity, and surprising difference. And to my mind that is the accomplishment of this body of work.

Thanks for looking and reading,
Alex
Alex Gartenfeld
Online Editor
Art in America/Interview

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