Franziska Nast

C-Print, 200 Lagen Affichenpapier, Leim / 
c-print, 200 layers of affiche paper, glue,
je / each 594 × 841 mm

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Jutta Mattern
Works with biographical elements right up to self-dramatisation, such as »Familienaufstellung« (Family Constellations) and »I’ve seen that face before«, are equally part of your repertoire. Some of them can also be seen at the Arp Museum. Why are they so important to you as exhibits?

FN
It is important to me that the theme of the ›Femme ­Maison‹ (Louise Bourgeois), the female figure supposedly grown together with the house, appears as a motif. Formally, the series reproduces the shape of party posters many times pasted over, like the ones you find in underpasses or in red-light districts. Some hip events that you could have gone to. My motif then interferes with this form. And then suddenly it is the ever-repeating everyday life that is monotonously superimposed here.
You know, nostalgia, pop culture and fashion styles as quotations merge into some of my works and thus touch on feminist issues, common role clichés … The image of the family, how do you manage equal treatment, when is and can work be done by whom and under what circumstances, for example when there are children to look after? Which concomitant effects and stories influence the work? The process of production is also in focus here. In »Familienaufstellung«, too, there are many levels in each motif, a thicket of references.
For quite a bit, I have studied the work of Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who described herself as a ›maintenance artist‹ and wrote a manifesto against the role of housewives as women confined indoors. Bastian Hartig put it aptly in his book about her work: »Maintenance for Ukeles is the field of human activity of keeping things going, like cooking, cleaning and raising children«. I feel very much spoken to when she talks about her despair, about the unproductivity, the invisibility, the ungratefulness she experiences, towards her maintenance work after she – being an artist – suddenly became a mother. »And suddenly I was stuck at home changing nappies. I thought my brain was going to explode.« – That’s exactly how it feels like.
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