PROJECT Slowly and with purpose This scene is taken from a also chose the urban fabric the head of the Empire short animation storyboar- of as a ma- State and the Chrysler buil- ded by the artist Madelon trix, clouding her intimate ding bob up and down, fel- Vriesendorp with Teri sensation of the city with lating each other in a Wehn-Damisch and develo- its public façade. In both steady rhythm. Through a ped from a body of work women’s art work the inte- panoramic window their lo- that Vriesendorp had crea- rior and exterior becomes vemaking is witnessed by a ted in the early 1970s after transposable, the city both legion of anonymous, an- she moved to Ithaca, NY interior setting and public thropomorphized Manhat- with her husband Rem Ko- domain. This strategy is tan buildings deeply olhaas.1 Her drawings epitomized in the rug in entrenched in the scene would later become part of Vriesendorp’s most famous unfolding in front of them. Koolhaas’s influential text drawing from this series, The amputated arm of the Delirious New York from Flagrant Delit, from 1975, Statue of Liberty makes a 1978. In addition to the bi- which shows the Manhat- Cocteauish appearance in zarre and surreal subject tan city grid as a structure form of the table lamp on matter, it is the treatment that runs through the in- the bedside dresser, mood- of the city of New York as a side of the apartment and lighting a scene that is har- pulsating, sweating, scre- is echoed in the view shly interrupted by the wing mass of buildings, through the panoramic spotlight that the Rockefel- that is both stage and pro- window in the geometric ler Center casts in the bed tagonist, that is so relevant blocks of the urban struc- upon entering and catching to the work of Lena Henke. ture. DEAD HORSE BAY the couple inflagranti. For Dead Horse Bay Henke It is the aerial perspective ANNA GRITZ that reduces the chaos of The tower, or tenanted van- while being an active parti- ON LENA HENKE the city to the easily navi- tage point becomes an op- cipant in it. It is as if, once gable lines and channels of tical device, a lens or observed, we carry this a map. Distance allows for camera as Beatriz Colo- perspective within us, ob- the abstraction necessary mina calls it, consolidating serving ourselves from the to gain an overview, gran- inhabitation and the view position of an elevated out- ting the order, which is so onto the exterior word.2 sider, an internalized pa- desirable when stuck amid She recounts Le Corbusier nopticon of sorts, not the inner-city chaos below. suggesting the possibility dissimilar from Jeremy The birds-eye view has to inhabit the camera as a Bentham’s and certainly a long been a tool for map- means of employing a sy- perspective encouraged by making and is also in Hen- stem of classification.3 One much recent municipal city ke’s portrait employed to might take his point further planning. And yet aside this end. It is a viewpoint and say that the mind can from suggesting an internal that beckons authority and mimic a technology upon corrective this type of split domination over the surve- experiencing it. In a similar perspective also allows for yed exterior world. Establi- manner the perspective of an incorporated view onto shed in the Flemish portrait a surveillance camera or our physical location. It is painting of the 15th Cen- the Google Earth zoom, this incorporated view that tury by painters such as once seen, can be called Henke presents in this city- Jan van Eyck, the perspec- upon at will, allowing for a scape cum map. The gaze tive signalled the reach of double entity – we can in- is multiplied and while we influence that the sitter had habit both the instrument reside in her sight down on bestowed upon himself. glancing over a cityscape the city of her “Wahl Hei-

192 mat” Manhattan, we also hoof dollhouses (#5) can iconic architecture, con- pture in the city, a place in situ alongside a cast of City of the 1970s, the work observe her through a win- be found copulating not un- stantly threatening to col- that she experienced other- auxiliary sculptures by presents a very personal vi- dow lying down on the top like Vriesendorp’s skyscra- lapse, not made to last but wise as desolate and wi- Hans Arp, Joseph Jäckel sion of the skyline of the floor of the Freedom Tower, pers on the shore of the to be rebuilt when needed. thout much public life, and Hans Bucher. (As a city, stretching and shrin- here displayed in the shape , spewing They are like inflatable rub- Henke decided to cast the side note it is worth men- king buildings and avenues of a milk bottle that curiou- green water in the shape of ber dolls, summoned into sculptures in the public tioning that impregnation at her leisure, going so far sly resembles her own milk a spiral (jetty), a nod to an shape and existence realm as the protagonists was one risk Vriesendorp’s to transfigure the outline of bottle sculptures. She is another movement that through a mould, once de- of a photo love story, a edifices did not have to Manhattan Island to match lying there playing with her was highly reliant on the sired and easily destroyed common sub genre in Ger- fear, at least that’s what the famous anatomical dra- sculptures as if they are aerial view. All the while and stored away when not. man teenage literature. The one might assume from the wing of the head of a horse dolls in a dollhouse, while specimens of her Female The series developed out comic reframes and subti- casually cast aside ‘Good by Théodore Géricault (#9). surveying the ongoings of Fatigue Series (2015) – of a show entitled DIE, tles shots of the sculptures Year’ condom lying next to The skin pulled away to re- the city below through a New Museum, At&t Buil- after Tony Smith. Amongst in the city, tell the story of the exhausted lovers). veal the underlying muscle massive window (#2). ding, Chelsea Hotel, and other works Henke showed Marina and Paul, two pube- Inspired by the works in strands evocative of hi- Henke is employing a simi- Flat Iron Building (all #7) – large industrial size sand scent sculptures in love, Ignazio Danti’s famous Gal- ghways and the infrastruc- lar type of scale confusion are casually spread about bags, the ones’ in which one a work by Marino Ma- lery of Maps in the Vatican ture of the city grid. With here as practiced by Vrie- the lower half of the island. sand is delivered for con- rini and the other by Paul Museums, Lena Henke de- the baroque-eye of an Ar- sendorp in her drawings. struction sites. The sand Derkes. Their love story is ploys the aerial view not cimboldo the city is reali- While some of Henke’s There is something easy was kept in the industrial told as a drama, unfolding simply as an attempt to zed as an organism made sculptures appear as mi- about Henke’s Female Fati- bags, and moulded to re- through an unplanned pre- map a city, but as a portra- from a set of intertwined, niatures and others mate- gues, the way that the fe- semble fragmented female gnancy and the resulting yal of her life, yet herself in and highly symbolic com- rialize in the cityscape male bodies are slouching, bodies, an ass, a torso with quarrels with family and the very city. Not dissimilar ponents assembled to blown up to the size of cast from sand, on top of head, a crotch with her legs friends and illustrated from Saul Steinberg’s ico- create something new. The buildings, her detergent the sharp steel outlines of crossed as in Lower Part through the sculptures shot nic vistas of the New York reference to the horse goes

(legs) (2014). It is another serial publication Frustra- of modernism had been far back for Henke, recal- island (#3) is taken from One of the creatures has self-portrait of sorts – Lena tion (1975-80) which pre- thoroughly exhausted.”5 ling her upbringing next to Dante Aligheri’s inscription also found its way into is assembling herself in sents women slouched on The physical manner di- a horse riding stable in onto the opening of a cave Henke’s map, (#8) guarding fragments made of sand in couches, not wearing any splayed by the buildings, rural Germany, blurring her that bears the features of a the north entrance to Fre- the gallery. The shaped bra, casually carrying a fag flaunting arousal, strain and pastoral origins with her monster with a wide-open derick Law Olmsted’s Cen- parts were then at times or breastfeeding a baby, physical exhaustion opens new urban home. The mouth as its entrance in tral Park, reminding us that embellished with works habitually not poised or up a perspective onto ar- horse motive is picked up the Sacro Bosco Park in as much as we would like from a series she calls composed but instead per- chitecture that suggests an frequently in the work, from Bomarzo, in central Italy. to see our cities as places Chainmail (2014), metallic petually irritated about the unconscious double life. her saddles and horse The saying states, “Ogni of communal decision-ma- chain nets cast in epoxy in pitfalls of modern living Their constitution as erotic blankets in works like pensiero vola”, meaning king, they were for the FedEx boxes resembling (generally the pains of li- beings is correspondent to Freeze Frame (2014) to “Every thought flies away,” most part planned accor- medieval armour. The ca- ving with the other sex).4 Lena’s treatment of archi- Laundry Day (2015), the de- advocating a letting go of ding to the visions and sual, almost sluggish body tecture and sculpture as tergent and milk bottle reason upon entering the whimsies of individual men, language of the sand scul- This overly human, unapo- both not only hosting each sculptures nestled in cera- park with its cast of grote- Olmsted being just one of ptures can be seen in con- logetic, unpolished attitude other but as being emotio- mic hoofs which are grote- sque monstrosities. The these, ano- versation with a type of is present in both Henke’s nally and physically affec- squely distorted to the gardens, which were built ther. Henke makes nods to feminist illustration com- sculpture and Vriesen- ting. Her 2014 comic book, point that they begin to re- in the 16th century accor- both men here, tracing the mon in ’70s and ’80s maga- dorp’s skyscrapers. Vrie- Yes, I Am Pregnant was semble vaginas, tenderly ding to the vision of Pier impact that the ideas of zine culture with Claire sendorp speaks of the produced in reaction to the holding quarter coins bet- Francesco Orsini, lay for- these two had for the city Bretécher as one of the drawings as “the result of invitation to create a new ween their lips – laundry gotten and overgrown for of New York. Frederick Law most famous protagonists. an in-depth analysis of the work for the collection of money, one might assume. centuries until they were Olmsted through his con- The lazy, lasziv poses ap- possibilities provided by ar- the Sculpture Museum in rediscovered and treasured cept of a (#10) pear borrowed from sour- chitecture, marking a time Marl, Germany. Inspired by The saying heralded on the by amongst others Jean that embedded handmade ces such as Bretécher’s in which the ridged corset the richness in public scul- emblem floating above the Cocteau and Salvador Dalí. nature as a democratic and civilizing force into the ject M/L Art Space, a spon- power. The artist as model urban fabric and Robert taneous and itinerant cura- master builder or mapma- Moses by restructuring the torial collaboration with ker has the authority to city’s infrastructure with his Marie Karlberg for which shape space independent curving park and expres- both artists assemble a of municipal needs, logi- sways (#1), extensive brid- group show for a one-night stics and funds. The ges and endless rows of only appearance. map/model carries the po- red brick tower blocks pun- tential of closeness and ctuated only by the occa- Separated from its context ownership of structures sional asphalt playground. Henke’s map floats like a that are – because of their It is the ability to restruc- massive spaceship in the size and complexities – dif- ture on a massive scale to air, like a model and not ficult to grasp in their enti- build a system that will unlike Mike Kelley’s Educa- rety. Henke draws order and shape the way tional Complex (1995) a re- reference here to the mo- people navigate a place construction of a space dels built by people who and relate to each other based on recollection identify as objectophile – that draws Henke to these alone, omitting some ele- who develop strong fee- men. Coincidentally, it was ments in favour of the lings of love for, and are at- Moses’ BQE, the expres- aspects that burned them- tracted to monuments and sway that ruptures Broo- selves deep into memory build structures. The affec- klyn in such a severe over time. The table-top ar- tion is often based in the manner, that was the site of chitectural model just like belief that objects have the first manifestation of the cityscape is for both souls, feelings and are able Henke’s collaborative pro- Kelley and Henke a site of to communicate, and the

hand made models fun- 1. The film entitled Flagrant Délit ction as stand ins, as tran- was produced for French television and premiered in 1980. sportable sites for the their 2. Beatriz Colomina (ed.), Sexuality love. These maps and mo- & Space (New York: Princeton Ar- dels are hybrids of sorts, or chitectural Press, 1992), p. 121. 3. Ibid. as Dan Graham would say, 4. Claire Bretécher, Les frustrés (5 they are ways to expe- albums, 1975-1980). rience architecture and the 5. Madelon Vriesendorp in Klaus Leuschel, “Sex and the City? built environment without In architecture!”, http://www.archito- actually building it. They are nic.com/ntsht/sex-and-the-city-in- intermediates that allow architecture/7000243 Henke to experience the city as an environment that With thanks to illustrator is manipulatable and that Drew Alderfer can be shaped as much as it shapes us.

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