SELFHOOD, ARTISTHOOD, MOTHERHOOD

Anecdotes of artists and art professionals reshaping the quotidian word ‘mother’ and the conditional status of ‘motherhood’.

This book brings light to the subject of motherhood - the status of being a mother - through a collection of interviews and essays written by artists and art professionals in the visual art sector who are also mothers. The book highlights how ‘mother’, among many categories shaping various identities, is perceived in contemporary art and its professional domain. It also looks at how these women relate their artistic practice to motherhood, or keep their distance from it, while at the same time asserting their artistic autonomy.

SELFHOOD, ARTISTHOOD, MOTHERHOOD revolves around the stories of eleven women - among them artists, but also a curator and a director - all actively engaged in the art scene. Each tells their story of how their life is moulded into two parts, motherhood and art. While the relationship between the two is deeply intertwined at times, there are other times where motherhood and art take up their own space and gaze at each other. Sometimes, they end up as two separate worlds without any emotional exchange.

Filled with personal stories and thoughts on motherhood and its impact on their artistic career, this book features Seoul-based artists Mirai Jeon, Mirim Chu and Youjin Jeon; Danish art duo Hesselholdt & Mejlvang and artist Lea Guldditte Hestelund; Helene Nyborg Bay, director of Nikolaj Kunsthal in Copenhagen; Hungary-born and Netherlands-based artist Csilla Klenyanszki; Korean curator Eunbi Jo currently living in Amsterdam; artist and curator Annesofie Sandal who is a Korean adoptee raised in Denmark and currently working in New York; and Dani Daeun Kim, member of Factory Collective that runs the art space FACTORY2 in Seoul and who led the publication of this project. The book provides an opportunity to look into the conjunction of motherhood and art in life and the sociocultural position and psychological status of artist-mothers.

SELFHOOD, ARTISTHOOD, MOTHERHOOD
Dani Daeun Kim (Ed.)  

FACTORY, 2019
ISBN 9791187970040 03600 

150 x 225 x 14mm, 218 pp; Korean, English
Paperback