Encyclopedia

Greenlandic word for "summer place" or "summer camp," referring to the settlements where Inuit gathered in the summer before becoming settled. During the 1970s and 1980s, young people in Greenland revived the Aasivik tradition, meeting once a year to discuss political issues as well as Greenlandic culture and identity. The first of these gatherings was held in 1976 and continued until 1996, after which there was a 15-year hiatus before the tradition was resumed in 2012. Justesen participated in the Aasivik event in 1980, which was held near the abandoned settlement of Qoornoq north of Nuuk, and some of her photographs from the gathering are used in a series of works from the same year.

Since the early 1960s, Justesen has collected and preserved various clippings, images, press material, catalogues, posters, sketches, correspondences, as well as documentation of works and exhibitions. Together, these form a comprehensive and still growing archive as of 2024. It consists of both analogue and digital material, organised by year and partially by type of material. For the artist, the archive serves as a working tool and a memo, but it is also of art historical value as a source for understanding Justesen's work and contemporary context. The majority of the information included in this catalogue comes from a review of the archive. Parts of the archive related to the artist's scenographic work and women's history have been donated by the artist to the Theatre Museum at the Court Theatre in Copenhagen and Køn - Gender Museum Denmark in Aarhus.

An object, a symbol, or a characteristic element that identifies a person or figure in a work of art. The references of attributes are determined by cultural conventions and iconographic traditions that have evolved over time through cultural practices, religious symbolism, literature, and storytelling, enabling the viewer to identify and understand their significance. In Justesen's work, there is extensive use of attributes, some of which draw on religious and mythological conventions, while others are everyday objects. The latter are selected based on various parameters, such as purely formal qualities, an object's ability to produce sound, indicate actions and states, and convey diverse meanings. Through the introduction of ordinary objects, art is simultaneously linked to everyday activities and rituals, which the artist began to explore in developing a feminist aesthetic throughout the 1970s.

An art form that involves the use of the artist's own body as the primary medium for artistic expression. The genre emerged in the 1960s and 1970s and was central to avant-garde art, often used with a feminist perspective to challenge conventional perceptions of body, gender, sexuality, and power. Since 1968, Justesen has used her own body in her art and is today considered one of the pioneers in the field.

Danish painter and sculptor (1908-1995). Brügger initially worked in oil and watercolours, but in 1945 she switched to batik painting and developed her own distinctive style. In 1958, she expanded her work to include sculpture and began experimenting with stone mosaic and ceramics. In 1964, Justesen worked as an assistant to Brügger at her studio in Laurbjerg, just outside Randers, where Brügger had her own kiln for firing ceramics. Justesen was able to use the studio for her own ceramic projects. That same year, they held a joint exhibition at Vestjysk Kunstforening in Ulfborg.

In 1974, Kirsten Justesen took a break from her studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and moved with her family to Montreal, Canada, where they lived for most of the year. During this time, she frequently visited the newly established La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse, which had been founded the previous year and remains a hub for female artists. In Montreal, she screened the film Sleeping Beauty, co-created with Jytte Rex in 1971, at several venues. While in Canada, Justesen also travelled to New York, where she saw works by artists such as Andy Warhol. In the 1980s, Justesen formed closer connections with the alternative art scene in Canada through her acquaintance with international Fluxus artists, particularly the circle around Le Lieu – centre en art actuel in Québec. Dedicated to interdisciplinary and ephemeral art forms, Le Lieu opened in 1982, and throughout the 1990s, Justesen participated in numerous festivals, events, and projects linked to the venue.

A term that Justesen frequently employs to describe her artistic approach, particularly in intermedial contexts, where the subject under investigation is decribed via its parameters.

A recurring motif in Justesen's work is silhouettes of dancing women, which she first introduced in 1972. The figures were created based on photographic recordings of the then female model at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, after which the artist traced the outline and refined the form. Since then, she has used the dancing women in screen prints, papercuts, ink drawings, ceramic works, vignettes and illustrations as patterns, friezes and compositional features. In 1991, a new variant was added, which the artist herself embodied and which is also based on a photographic source. This appears mainly in works on paper and collages, where the figure is presented in combination with a wide range of attributes. The dancing women are seen by Justesen herself as a 'representation of good energy'.

The Danish higher education institution for training primary school teachers. DLH was established in Copenhagen in 1856 and closed as an independent institution in 2000. From the late 1970s through the 1980s, Justesen conducted several courses and lectures for art teachers on sculpture in theory and practice under the auspices of DLH. According to the artist, the art department had unique workshop facilities for educational use.

Justesen often dates her works over a long time span, due to her practice of reusing and mixing materials from different periods in new contexts. The start year indicates when the earliest material was created or collected, and the end year marks when a work was completed.

An international network of artists that emerged in the early 1960s with roots in experimental music. Fluxus is not defined by a distinct style but by a shared approach to art that is both anti-academic and anti-commercial, considering art and life as two sides of the same coin. The network's activities often take place in an intermedial field and are based on simple scores. From the outset, the network had close ties to Denmark. One of the first Fluxus events took place in Copenhagen in 1962, and the movement had a significant influence on the development of the Danish 1960s avant-garde. In her artistic approach, Justesen is partly akin to Fluxus and has moved within the circle of the network's main figures, but she has never been an official part of it. Jokingly, she has said of her relationship with Fluxus: 'Some of my friends once had tea at George Maciunas’s, but whether they got anything to eat, I don't know'.

A concept formulated by Justesen to describe a housewife's life and daily rituals, characterized by repetition and rhythm. The concept is particularly associated with the silk-screen series Housewife Pictures (1974-75) and is explained by the artist in the following way in a clip from the unpublished TV broadcast Ingen kvinde uden ('No Woman Without') (1985): “You have a baby. You take the baby, lift it out of the cradle, place it on the changing table, remove the diaper, take a basin, pour water into the basin, wash the baby, dry the baby, take the powder container, sprinkle powder on the baby, take a new diaper, put the diaper on, and so on. And then you take the beef roast, unwrap it from the paper, wash it, pat it dry, sprinkle salt on it, and turn on the oven. Or if you were to become completely beside yourself with despair over the state of being a housewife, you might take the beef roast and place it in the cradle and put the baby in the oven, because it's actually the same ballet you perform every single day.”

One of the first communes in Denmark, established in a detached house at Roers Allé 34 in Odense, where the first residents moved in on 1 February 1963. The space quickly became too small, and by May of the same year, they relocated across town to a patrician villa at Hunderupvej 78. In the early years, the commune was a hub for various progressive political and artistic activities, which were open to all and announced in the monthly publication HUS-bladet. The commune had its own printing press and ceramics workshop, and in the basement, they established a gallery called Galerie EXI. Justesen was among the first group of residents and lived there until 1965, when she moved to Aarhus to study sculpture at the Jutland Art Academy. According to the artist, her approach to the world was greatly shaped by her time in the commune, where her awareness of politics and the relationship between the individual and society was particularly sharpened.

Self-proclaimed professor-less 'department' at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, established by a group of students at the academy and active from 1968 to 1970. In line with the activist and avant-garde spirit of the time, the students aimed to create an alternative to the academy's traditional schools in the form of an open forum for socially engaged and interdisciplinary art forms, group activities, and communities of interest. The department was not officially recognized by the academy and instead functioned as an informal group with shifting members. Together, they acquired a Canon Super8 film camera, which gave the group its name (the Canon Club) and was used to document their activities. In the period during which the group was active, they carried out a series of happenings and actions. The most groundbreaking projects were The Garden (1970), a recreational and activating garden project for the Peder Lykke Centre on Amager, and the exhibition Images of Women (1970), created by the group’s female members and the first feminist exhibition in Denmark. Justesen was among the founders of Kanonklubben and participated in several projects, including The Garden and Images of Women.

Russian politician, author, and feminist (1872-1952). In her political and literary work, Kollontaj focused on the conditions of working women, women's liberation, and gender equality in society, the family, and marriage. As one of the first to articulate the relationship between class struggle and women's struggle, she became a pioneer for left-wing feminists, especially in the 1970s when Justesen also became acquainted with her. The exact timing and context of this acquaintance are unknown, but several of Kollontaj's publications are found in the artist's book collection, with The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman, published and translated into Danish in 1974, being particularly noteworthy. An excerpt from this work was included the following year in a text installation featured in the artist's first solo exhibition titled Housewife Pictures at Tranegården in Gentofte, Denmark.

Danish sculptor (1908-1997). Nellemose trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts under Einar Utzon-Frank (1927-1933). He began his career as an illustrator, focusing on motifs from the world of sports, which he continued to explore in his work as a sculptor. His style is naturalistic, and he created a large number of public sculptures and monuments, including those of Søren Kierkegaard and B.S. Ingemann. For his artistic oeuvre, he received the Eckersberg Medal (1944) and the Thorvaldsen Medal (1968). From 1965-68, he was part of the teaching staff from Copenhagen at the Jutland Art Academy, where Justesen were among his students. According to Justesen, Nellemose taught her the classical sculptural craft, and she views his instruction as an apprenticeship.

A Danish left-wing feminist women's movement whose name was inspired directly by the American Redstockings. In Denmark, the fight for women's equality gained momentum with the establishment of Rødstrømperne in 1970. Under the slogans ‘The personal is political’ and ‘No women’s struggle without class struggle, no class struggle without women’s struggle!’ they focused on creating equal conditions for women and men both at home and in the workplace. Organizationally, the movement was characterized by a flat, leaderless structure, with self-defined base and work groups planning and executing their own and joint activities. Justesen was actively involved in Rødstrømperne from the beginning and participated in significant initiatives such as the Women’s Camp at Femø, the magazine Kvinder (‘Women’), and the Women’s Festival in Fælledparken, Copenhagen, in 1979, where she was responsible for the scenographic organization of the festival.

Christian saint who lived in the 4th century in Alexandria. Catherine was a learned young woman who advocated for Christianity. According to legend, she was persecuted by Emperor Maxentius, who tried to persuade her to renounce her Christian faith and marry him. When the emperor could not convince her, she was sentenced to death. First, she was placed on a breaking wheel, but the wheel shattered, and instead, she was beheaded. It is said that her body was taken to Mount Sinai, where a monastery was built in her honor. Her primary attributes are the wheel, sword, and book, and she is considered the patron saint of a number of professions and groups such as students, philosophers, spinners, seamstresses, and millers. Since 1972, when Justesen first encountered Catherine in the Danish town of Hjørring, the artist has kept a close eye on her figure and has created a large number of works inspired by it. In addition to a stay at the monastery in the Sinai desert, she has continuously collected material about the saint during her travels both at home and abroad.

Alongside her work as a visual artist, Justesen has worked with scenography. She made her debut as a scenographer in 1967 with Peter Bangsgård’s Cementløverne, directed by Gunnar Rose, at Studenterscenen in Aarhus. Since then, she has created scenography for over 30 productions at various large and small Danish theaters. From 1982 to 1985, she was a teaching assistant in scenography at the Department for Theatre Studies at the University of Copenhagen. In 1985, she was appointed head of department at the Danish National School of Performing Arts in Copenhagen, where she contributed to the development of the scenography programme from 1985 to 1990. Throughout the 1990s, she closely collaborated with the Randi Patterson Company as a scenographer and librettist, co-creating the productions Pink Lady (1996) and Diamonds (1997). A significant part of her scenographic sketches and materials is now housed at the Theatre Museum at the Court Theatre in Copenhagen.

Folk high school, located in Northern Jutland, Denmark. Founded in 1951, the school initially operated as an agricultural college until the early 1970s, when new management took over and shifted its ideological foundation and curriculum in a socialist direction. This orientation continued until the school closed in 1990. From 1975 to 1976, Justesen was employed as a teacher and lived at the school with her young sons. She was responsible for the graphic, photographic, and ceramics workshops, which students could use for both educational and recreational purposes.

A crucial concept in the genre of sculpture, referring to the surface with which a sculptural work engages; whether it's a pedestal, a podium, or any other form of foundation that impacts how the work is presented and perceived by the viewer. In her works, Justesen has utilized a variety of supporting surfaces, including not only the traditional pedestal but also shopping carts, ice, rocks, shelves, and floors.

A term encompassing the experimental art scene that emerged in Aarhus during the 1960s, in which Justesen played an active role during her studies at the Jutland Art Academy from 1965 to 1968. Influenced by movements like Fluxus, artists, composers, writers, and architects came together to explore new hybrid art forms. This led to a diverse range of events such as happenings, environments, performances, concerts, readings, festivals, and exhibitions. Copenhagen and international artists were invited to join, making the city a dynamic hub for experimental art in Denmark at that time. Many of these activities are documented in the publication Århus Rapport 1961-1969, published by Århus Kunstforening af 1847 in 1969.

The titles of some of Justesen’s works are a work in progress. At times, the artist has changed the title of a piece, such as Sculpture II, which has been exhibited under the title Kasse 60 x 60 x 50 cm. In other cases, a title has been assigned much later than the work was created. As far as possible, the titles in the catalogue have been confirmed with the artist or are based on the most recent titles published in exhibition catalogues.

Specialised workshop for ceramic art located in Tommerup on Funen, established in 1987 under the direction of ceramicists Esben Lyngsaa Madsen and Gunhild Rudjord. With its expertise, the workshop has significantly contributed to the development of ceramic art in Denmark over several decades, having facilitated the realization of more than 1,200 ceramic projects for both Danish and international artists. Since the early 1990s, Justesen has worked at the workshop on several occasions, most recently in 2021 for preparatory work on a monument for Countess Danner.

Justesen consistently uses the word ’work’ rather than ‘oeuvre’ about her art. As both a noun and verb the term ‘work’ prioritises action and process as highly as results. Work can end, but also be resumed. At the same time it dismantles the myth of art as elevated and essentially different to everyday life. Making art is a job like any other, something expressed with a feminist twist in Justesen’s CV from 1974 published in the journal Cras VI where she lists her work as an artist as on a par with housework, teaching, abortions and travelling.