me Collectors Room/Olbricht Foundation will present its first ever exhibition dedicated entirely to women artists, in a show entitled ‘QUEENSIZE – Female Artists from the Olbricht Collection’, opening on 7 December 2014. With close to 60 artists, the exhibition represents a third of all women artists featured in the collection. The some 150 works on display in all manner of media stem from such respected artists as Helene Appel, Louise Bourgeois, Nathalie Djurberg, Marlene Dumas, Klara Kristalova, Sükran Moral, Elizabeth Peyton, Patricia Piccinini, Cindy Sherman, Taryn Simon, and Carolein Smit, to name but a few.
The springboard for ideas behind the show is a term used to describe one of the largest bed sizes: ‘queensize’. The bed serves as a key existential site of human experience, a symbol of life and death, dreams and nightmares, birth and decay – experiences that shape our identity. In an exhibition that juxtaposes widely differing sensibilities, the selected artists present us with their own distinctive view of human existence and of what makes us uniquely ourselves: our innermost being and innermost needs, our desires and passions.
Queensize explores the alternating states of consciousness in life and follows the human life-cycle of birth, life, and death. Guided by these three phases, the display investigates the disparities between how we see ourselves and how others see us, and asks whether there really is such a thing as the specifically female view.

The first stage in life can be described as a phase of unspoiled identity that prevails directly after birth. Free from social constraints, handed-down gender roles, and social codes, this phase marks a pure form of existence, as defined by play, the absence of inadequacies, and an inherent acceptance of one’s place in the world. This is reflected by Monika Baer’s painting ‘Untitled’ (2004). In it, we see the bodiless, girlish head of a woman, emerging from nowhere, looking in an indeterminate direction, and floating on the picture plane, half-abstract, half-figurative, seemingly freed from time and space.
This initial phase is followed by the intensity of the rush of life, in which the experiences of female identity are key. Photographic works by eleven artists draw attention to how women are depicted, offering multiple perspectives on femininity. This chapter of the exhibition includes portraits by Jitka Hanzlová that show women in all facets of their personality: open, confident, shy, pensive, self-doubting, authentic, and direct – just as the sitters perceive themselves and want to appear. They are contrasted by the grotesque faces in Dawn Mellor’s paintings ‘Mia Farrow’ and ‘Julia Roberts’ (both 2010). Unsparing and brutal, these canvases reveal the ugly side of Hollywood – a world of illusion and identities constructed just as easily as they are ripped to shreds.
The third section represents death and simultaneously addresses the political dimension of female identity; individual and collective experiences and constraints seen against the backdrop of war and a male-dominated world. In her 2009 video work ‘The Experiment (Greed)’, Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg uses her distinctive, unsettling clay figures to explore the horrors of patriarchal legitimacy and power, imposed, in this case, under the guise of faith.
The exhibition is curated by Nicola Graef (documentary producer and director) and Wolfgang Schoppmann (chief curator of the Olbricht Collection).
A publication accompanying ‘QUEENSIZE – Female Artists from the Olbricht Collection’ will be published in February 2015.
Featured artists:
Ellen Altfest, Helene Appel, Monika Baer, Tina Barney, Vanessa Beecroft, Katharina Bosse, Louise Bourgeois, Ulla von Brandenburg, Rineke Dijkstra, Nathalie Djurberg, Marlene Dumas, Nicole Eisenman, Sylvie Fleury, Hope Ginsburg, Jitka Hanzlová, Mona Hatoum, Almut Heise, Laurie Hogin, Jenny Holzer, Klara Kristalova, Makiko Kudo, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, Abigail Lane, Sharon Lockhart, Teresa Margolles, Alex McQuilkin, Hellen van Meene, Dawn Mellor, Marilyn Minter, Sükran Moral, Elizabeth Peyton, Patricia Piccinini, Chloe Piene, Bettina Rheims, Daniela Rossell, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Taryn Simon, Carolein Smit, Anj Smith, Kiki Smith, Rebecca Stevenson, Kirsten Stoltmann, Anett Stuth, Paloma Varga Weisz, Katharina Wulff, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Lisa Yuskavage

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/21370