2 photographs sealed under plexiglass and mounted (MDF)
Blue Danaé 1 (close-up) 34 x 49 cm Blue Danaé 1 & 2 42 x 61 cm Edition of 7 Camera Doris Frohnapfel
Insurance value Blue Danaé 1 – (negative no. 17) 1,000 Euros Blue Danaé 2 – (negative no. 12) 1,500 Euros 2015 Blue Danaé 1, 35 x 23.5 cm (edition of 7), glossy digital laser exposure Price 500 Euros Blue Danaé 1 & 2 are pictured in the catalogue for the exhibition Menschen wie Du und Ich (People Like You and Me), Kölnisches Stadtmuseum (Cologne City Museum) (D) Korridor Verlag ISBN 3−9804354−6−6 1999
cunt prints – a collection of works:
The two Blue Danaé self-portrait photographs were created a year after the making of Tanya Ury’s video/performance: Golden Showers, in which, over a two hour period, her body was completely covered in gold leaf by a German art restorer. Blue Danaé 1 & 2 depict the artist seated on blue velvet; the close-up images are of her genitalia covered in gold leaf. The photos are a homage to Gustav Klimt whose painting “Danaé” was created during 1907-08. Danaé was impregnated by the god Zeus when he appeared to her in the form of a shower of gold.
Blue Danaé inspired also by Gustave Courbet’s “L’Origine Du Monde/The Origin of the World” (1866), commemorates a so-called “Golden” anniversary: in the late 1990’s it emerged in the press that for 50 years, Swiss banks had secretly hoarded $6 billion of Nazi Gold. The artist presents herself as the proverbial “crown jewels“1. While also referencing David Lynch’s film “Blue Velvet” (1986), Blue Danaé in fact deals with the same issues as in many other of Ury’s works:
“Ury’s performances and photographic artwork since the mid-1990s stage the gendered, sexualised and racialised fixations of the discursively and historically injured body, positing yet ultimately suspending its utopian liberation from these inscriptions.”
Metaphors of Genocide: The Staging of Jewish History and Identity in the Art of Tanya Ury by Cathy S. Gelbin in Performance and Performativity in German Cultural Studies, Carolin Duttlinger, Lucia Ruprecht, Andres Webber (eds) 2003, publ. Peter Lang
1 1. crown jewels. uk slang for penis and balls because they are a guarded treasure. www.urbandictionary.co…
Presentation
1998 Group exhibition, Blue Danaé 1, Outfit, Authentizität und Maskerade (Authenticity and Masquerade), Kunsthaus Rhenania, 12 Internationale Photoszene Köln
1998 Group exhibition, Blue Danaé 1 & 2, Davka. Jüdisches Leben in Berlin — Traditionen und Visionen (Jewish Life in Berlin — Traditions and Visions), Centrum Judaicum
1999 Blue Danaé 1 & 2, pictured in catalogue: Menschen wie du und Ich, Kölnisches Stadtmuseum, Korridor Verlag (D) ISBN 3−9804354−6−6
2007 (23.3.) On the online Feminist Art Base: www.brooklynmuseum.org…
Blue Danaé 1, The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, The Brooklyn Museum, New York (USA)
Collections
2000 Blue Danaé 1, in private collection Dr. Cathy Gelbin (GB)
2015 Blue Danaé 1, 35 x 23.5 cm, glossy digital laser exposure in private collection Dr. Elisa Klaphek (GB)