KATALIN LADIK Sunrise, 1978 Paper, collage 23 x 15 cm + record murat CAMA MOFY, CBE LITO KATALIN LADIK ’ Die Meistersingers, 1980 _ Paper, collage 28,5 x 20,5om KATALIN LADIK + record Polish Volksong, 1978 Paper, collage 17.x260m + record Visual poems ‘The basic medium of Ladik’s artworks is the poem, the traditional status of which she had already replaced by the late six- ties with far from traditional solutions related to the language and typography of the classical avant-garde. Her idiosyncratic genre still came to be phonic-, or sound poetry, which gave her such autonomy that could not be followed by contemporary (male) poets. Ladik’s solution for this situation is shown in such visual poems, which, as feminine versions of the Dadaist collage technique, not only bear a number of characteristics related to the notion of womanhood (and a traditional one at that, involving sewing and tailoring) in their visuality, but they also represent the markedly ritualistic character of her unique performance art as musical scores that can be chanted. The chantability and auditory quality of these scores was termed by Liz Kotz as post-Cageian.KATALIN LADIK Sonette of the Lead, 1975 Painted lead 23x 15cm + record Visual poems The basic medium of Ladik’s artworks is the poom, the traditional status of which she had already replaced by the late six- ties with far from traditional solutions related to the language and typography of the classical avant-garde. Her idiosyncratic genre still came to be phonic-, or sound poetty, which gave her such autonomy that could not be followed by contemporary (male) poets. Lacik’s solution for this situation is shown in such visual poems, which, as feminine versions of the Dadaist Collage technique, not only bear a number of characteristics related to the notion of womanhood (and a traditional one at that, involving sewing and tailoring) in their visuality, but they also represent the markedly ritualistic character of her unique performance art as musical scores that can be chanted. The chantabilty and auditory quality of these scores was termed by Liz Kotz as post-Cageian.KATALIN LADIK EGO ALTER-EGO, performance, 1979 Gelatine silver print 7 pcs., dimensions variable Detail In an interview with Judita Salgo from the early 1970s, Ladik disclosed her obsessive relation to the ‘androgynous. paradigm’: Ihave been obsessed for a long time with the myth of the androgynous, Greek mythological creatures of two sexes, and ‘many of my poems bear this mark. | have often regretted for being born a woman, and not androgynous or male. Perhaps this comes from dissatisfaction with the distasteful and subordinated role of the woman in the society. Of course, | had no choice. Although vulnerable, | accepted a woman's fate: in my struggle for survival, for my own ‘place under the sun’, | took advantage of all the opportunities my female sensibility granted. While exploiting this biologically assigned sensibility, | dis- covered new, inconceivable possibilities of poetry and expression in general. | used my experiences of maternity, even my body for the sacred act of universal insemination of all organic and mineral things, of soll with the waters. Only fertility, the power of reproduction, sustains the being against the nothingness. This is not merely about the fear of death. Here | sense the key for unlocking the gate of Nothingness.”KATALIN LADIK ‘Screaming Hole, performance, 1979 Photo: Gabor IFJU Gelatine silver print 3 pes. 13 x 18 cm each ln The Screaming Hole she repeated this game of fake striptease and maintaining male/female hygiene (shaving and foam) in an open air urban environment where she communicated with the audiences through a ‘hole’. Through this open- ing, they could peep at her and she could address them. Complexity of communication and representation in thus conceived artistic situation marked it as one of the fundamental feminist actions of the late 1970s.” Misko Suvakovic SCREAMING HOLE Ladik’s performance “The Screaming Hole” was enacted for the first time in Novi Sad in 1979. Inside the exhibition space, {or the purpose of the performance, Ladik built a circular structure covered with paper, so that the audience, when entered the room, would not be able to see her and what she was doing inside the structure. Ladik furnished this secluded/private space with objects such as a chair, a table, a cooker, radio, pans, etc. Outside the structure, the audience could only hear her and smell the food she was cooking. At first they waited, and after a while, a daring member of the audience made a first hole in the paper, followed by the others, who soon perforated the paper structure in shapes of peep holes, to be able to see what Ladik did inside. Also, Ladik hired a photographer, who made photos of the event and the audience watching her. In “The Screaming Hole” Ladik tackied the subject-object, active-passive binary that positioned women in art as passive and as objects of male gaze. Drawing on the work of Griselda Pollock, Sue Thornham, a feminist theoretician of the media representation of women, argues that women in history of art (from renaissance to the twentieth century) were portrayed as {etishized objects of men’s gaze. as “a mask of beauty” stripped of their individuality and personal identity, perceived solely as the body. As such, women were objectified and their bodies in art were, as Helen Potkin emphasized quoting Lisa Tickner, colonized by the male fantasy. Women’s task, according to Tickner was to “reciaim [their bodies] from masculine fantasy” and from its status of a “raw material for the men." In Potkin’s opinion, performance art by women, as an experi- mental genre without overwhelming history attached to it, opened a possibilty for women artists to reclaim their bodies and “to insert [their] female selt into art practice.” According to Potkin the “moving subject resists the assumption of the passive female, and challenges the patriarchal gaze,” which means that women performers were visibly active during the perfor- mance, and as such defied the stereotype of female passivity on the basic, literary level of meaning.Detail KATALIN LADIK Blackshave Poem; Novi Sad, Narodna Biblioteka, 1978 Photo: Imre POTH Gelatine silver print 12 pes. 40 x 30 cm each Ladik performed “Biackshave- poem” several times (Zagreb 1978; Budapest, 1979), and it was an example of what she called “inverted striptease.” Ladik incorporated it in “The Screaming Hole,” and the relevant aspect of the whole perfor- mance for the “Blackshave-poer” was that from the beginning of the entire show she wore several layers of clothes that she gradually took off, after the audience made peep holes in the paper structure and she performed “Poemim,” until she re~ mained only in bra and panties she wore over black pants and black pullover. Before taking off her underwear, Ladik shaved her armpits, over the biack pullover, and her face, using razorblade and shaving cream. Eventually, she took otf the under- wear too and stood “naked in front of the audience. Although the audience of the performance expected Ladik to strip down completely, this did not happen. She stayed in the black pants and pullover. However, at the end of her “striptease” Ladik made a traditional gesture of covering her intimate body parts in shame. LLadik’s decision not to take off her clothes is another example of the “manipulation of the audience's voyeuristic impulses.” ‘She refused to do the obvious and play the role of the seductress. She shattered the expectations of the audience to see her naked, and once more turned herself from the position of an object to a position of subject, who controls the develop- ment of events. Her anti-striptease can be read as a message to the part of the audience that, judging from her early perfor- mances when she used explicit nudity, considered her an exhibitionist, that she was an artist able to communicate a mean- ing without having to show her naked body. Another important aspect was that Ladik managed to avoid — what Lippard called “Selt-exploitation,” that was, according to her, one of the traps/dangers for women artists who used their own bodies as a material for art works, in order to expose the objectification of women in the society. For Lippard the way women’s bodies were used in the art by female artists moved on a fine line between parodying the women's object position in the society, and confirming that position with unjustified exposure of the female body. However, in these two performances, Ladik suc- cessfully negotiated women's position of a passive object, and offered an alternative femininity that subverted the patriar- chal norms.KATALIN LADIK Phonopoetica, Phonopoetic interpretation of Visual Poetry, 1976 Bakelite 20 x 20cm »She displayed, rendered this border (termed the practice of ‘phonic’ or ‘oral poetry’) visible and audible, as demonstrated by her vocal interpretation of Kurt Schwitters’ Dadaist Ursonate29, or her own poetry, for that matter: Ballada az eziist- biciklird! (Ballad of Silver Bike — vinyl disc, Forum, Novi Sad, 1969), Phonopcetica (vinyl disc, SKC, Belgrade, 1976), Poésie sonore internationale (Henri Chopin, ed., audio cassette, Jean-Michel Place, Paris, 1979) etc.” Misko Suvakovic ln 1976, my solo vinyl record Phonopoetica was released by Beigrade’s Student Cultural Centre, featuring phonic ey in my vocal interpretation. This record attracted considerable attention from the most significant contemporary authors phonic and visual poetry, like Henri Chopin, Bernard Heidsieck, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Francois Dufréne, Tibor Papp, Jack- ‘son Mac Low, Bob Cobbing, Jerome Rothenberg, Charlie Morrow, Brion Gysin, George Quasha etc. who invited me to je ternational festivals of avantgarde and phonic poetry.”KATALIN LADIK Descent of the Town of Novi Sad down the River Danube, 1974 Photo: Laszis DORMAN Gelatine silver print 2 pes. 40 x 30,5 cm each . Throw some postcards of Novi Sad, from Novi Sad into the Danube. Find out later where the river threw them out.” Instruction for the action, 1974. MEE 8 | KATALIN LADIK Pseudo Prisutnost, 1974 Golatine silver print 4 pes 30 x 40 em each This conceptual piece was based on the idea of broader participation in the action: the inhabitants of town Nowi Sad was invited to install their own portraits in the windows of their house. Katalin Ladik herseff installed her two self portraits in her windows, and as a performance she stood int he same window for a while.KATALIN LADIK Temerin performance, 1970 Gelatine silver print 3 pos. 9x 14,1 om each ‘One of the earliest performances of the artist. Its structure influenced the structure of her later performances. She started with the recitation of traditional written poems of her, then, by using folk instruments she drove the performance in the direc~ tion of phonic poetry. Her texts were very much influenced by the tradition of surrealism, which, that time was considered by them as .the” avantgarde. The text written on the wall - ,You can also suckle a goat!” — was also refer to that. KATALIN LADIK Pseudopresence 3-4 Acezantez, 1972 Golatine silver print (contact copy) 24x 180m KATALIN LADIK Folk Song, performance, 1973 Gelatine silver print 24 x 18cm She used the typical Hungarian and Balkan folk instruments in altemative ways. On this scene she plays the com stalk violin, which, to make sound out of it has to be wet. She used her mouth to make it wet with her saliva, gaining a strong erotic reference by it "1 = J KATALIN LADIK 7 | RO.M.E.T, performance, 1972 | Gelatine siver print, paper, typing, ink = 10 pes. 10,5 x 14,8. cm each | Score 29,7 x21 cm Her performance R.O.M.E.T. was realized in collaboration with the poet Janez Kocijantié, former member of the group KOD, and numerous associates and audience of 250 spectators in Novi Sad (Tribina mladih) on February 25, 1972. This stage-music action was conceived and performed as a grotesque para-ritual and/or pseudo-sculpture — a pseudo-re- construction of the ritual preparation of Tutankhamun's body for his funeral. This ‘performed archeology’ was challenged by the symbolical relation between the pharaoh’s body (Janez Kocijandié) and the high priestess’ (Katalin Ladik) para-ritual performance. This challenge lead from the mythical structure (pharaoh — high priestess) to an actual distinction within the ‘gender structure: Man — Woman, the man’s body becoming a mediatory object in the realm of intervention of the woman in action. A new formula was devised: man ~ object and woman ~ subject in action. One of the highlights of the performance was the ‘cosmetic’ preparation of a man’s body executed by a woman — then and there. The event was articulated by Ladik’s voice performance with a rehearsed acoustic soore.” Misko SuvakovicA anal, KATALIN LADIK Ornette, score, 1969 Paper, ink 6x83. + record Tone neaunal Lame naweats be te coer ine Nae ome oS tae aay ties with far from traditional solutions related to the language and typography of the classical genre still came to be phonic-, pet ed la ne aye ppc a lll (male) poets. Ladik’s solution for this situation is shown in such visual poems, which, as feminine versions of the Dadaist collage technique, not only bear a number of characteristics related to the notion of womanhood (and a traditional one at eae ig ea sro Wee iene but they also represent the markedly ritualistic character of her unique performance art as musical scores that can be chanted. The chantability and auditory quality of these scores was termed by Liz Kotz as post-Cageian.