[privat]

Performance, installation, 2000

In the gallery, a space has been created by hanging bedsheets on clotheslines. From this enclosed space comes the sound of a woman (me) singing Marilyn Monroe’s She Acts Like a Woman Should. My pink rubber-gloved hand extends through a hole in the sheet and pulls a rope attached to a system of pulleys.

The nature of the activity within the ‘private’ space remains puzzling, visible only through small glimpses offered by instant cameras sewn into the sheets.

Wearing a wig and heavy makeup, I am simultaneously engaged in two absurd and obscure tasks: singing the song on a continuous loop and manipulating the rope that raises and lowers two blood sausages in front of my face. Each time the sausages come within reach, I stop singing and try to take a bite.

Outside the private room, in the gallery, a second woman (Doreen Uhlig) moves silently and methodically, cutting all the roses from her summer dress one by one and letting them fall to the floor. Gradually, as she removes as many flowers as she can reach, she becomes more and more vulnerable, revealing more of her body as the dress disintegrates.

Through the voyeuristic view provided by the cameras and the seemingly self-destructive act of cutting away the flowers, the performance explores the permeable nature of female protective layers and paradoxical behaviors. It highlights themes of vulnerability, privacy, and exposure, while also hinting at the personal struggles and manipulation experienced by women in the spotlight, such as Marilyn Monroe.

"In strange mixtures of consternation, curiosity, uncertainty and shame, the gazes and movements in the space had to be renegotiated, which required a certain alertness and also brought nervousness, as could sometimes be seen from the reddened faces and various comments of the audience, which were accompanied by very different forms of laughter. The ‘public’ and collectively shared view of the staged and 'private' led to a certain exuberance on the part of the audience during this performance – a new constitution of an art community out of a disturbance thus took place ad hoc."

Tobias Bulang

The performance [privat] took place at the 5th Dresden International Performance Art Meeting at Kunst Haus Dresden.

Read an essay about this work:

Tobias Bulang: [privat] – eine Performance von Janet Grau und Doreen Uhlig

She Acts Like a Woman Should,written by Alton Delmore, sung by Marilyn Monroe, 1953:

If I know just what to say
when some trouble has his way,
and can make you feel that everything is good –

then I act like a woman,
and he likes a woman
to act like a woman should.

When he’s late and I’m alone,
and he doesn’t telephone,
and the kiss that greets him says, “I understood” –

then I act like a woman,
and he likes a woman
to act like a woman should.

And if I keep that love light shining in my eyes,
though I’m hurt by something he may say,
it doesn’t take him very long to realize
that it’s more than just devotion that makes me act that way…

And as years go passing by,
if I still can catch his eye,
and his love runs deeper than he thought it could,

then I act like a woman,
and he’s got a woman
who acts like a woman should.