Gitte Villesen (1965-), Color photographs from the series 35 pairs, 1998
© Gitte Villesen (1965-), Colour photograph from the series 35 Pairs, 1998.
The title 35 Pairs refers to the panties that an older woman is systematically putting out on a clothesline. Like a good housewife she leaves nothing to chance; other garments appear rarely: this load of laundry is not mixed up all higgledypiggledy. When the last pair of underpants are put up to dry, the series is concluded.
The pictures were taken from a window in the artist’s flat, using her vantage point to let us follow the sequence of events step by step.
© Gitte Villesen (1965-), Colour photograph from the series 35 Pairs, 1998.
The structured composition
The fenced-in clotheslines – a staple of most yards of this type – give the pictures a tightly structured composition that is intensified by a few colour accents: the blue and orange trashcan lids, and the clothes and the greyish-black patterns created by their shadows.
The ordinary, everyday scene
Through the serial structure of the work, Gitte Villesen addresses an ordinary, everyday scene in order to make a detailed study of the structures that people create in their lives in order to give it meaning.
Go to Danish and International Art after 1900
© Gitte Villesen (1965-), Colour photograph from the series 35 Pairs, 1998.
© Gitte Villesen (1965-), Colour photograph from the series 35 Pairs, 1998.
