The exhibition ‘I hit you with a flower’ cheerfully revolves around vulvissima, fiegelart and pastel colors

‘Girl art’: with this term, the work of artists such as Lily van der Stokker and Kinke Kooi has previously been dismissed as frivolous and less serious. For the exhibition I hit you with a flower Stedelijk Museum Schiedam brings together more than twenty artists who challenge the dominant (male) art norm with playful art in pastel and neon colors, with floral motifs or delicate details, with felt-tip pen or textile art.

The name of the exhibition is inspired by the famous video installation Ever is all over (1997) by the Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist (1962), who won the Sikkens Prize this year because she makes the world more colorful. The installation consists of two projections: on the right we see the camera meandering through a field of bright red flowers, on the left we see a woman walking through the streets of the Swiss city of Zurich with a similar flower. She looks feminine in her dress and heels, and while laughing she smashes car windows with that flower.

What her motives are is anyone’s guess. A policewoman appears behind the woman. Will she be arrested? The impending danger resolves itself: the two make eye contact and the policewoman smiles approvingly. Ever is all over is shown as a finale at the end of the exhibition. The only question is why it is projected half over the beams, especially then and there, in a corner of the attic space.

The video work is said to have been a source of inspiration for Beyoncé’s music video Hold up (2016, 225 million views on YouTube) in which the singer, just as smiling in a flowy dress, smashes car windows, this time with a baseball bat. You could easily imagine the slogan ‘smash the patriarchy‘, where the hard steel and the car symbolize the masculine.

Cellulite buttocks

Rist has never commented on what the message is Ever is all over is. She leaves that up to the viewer. In this exhibition, that breathing space is sometimes lacking. Take the space decorated around the theme ‘vulvissima’, in which vulvas can be seen in watercolours, on vases, as textile installations and photographed with glitter. In a sense, this ‘vulvissima’ is understandable when you consider that it was only in 2021 that the vulva was fully depicted in a Dutch biology book for the first time.

A highlight of the exhibition is the work of Kinke Kooi (1961), whose work has rightly been undergoing a revaluation for some time. After art school she was unable to gain a foothold in the art world, and freed from the burden of making work in the style of what was ‘in’ (read: the large brushstroke) she started drawing her cellulite buttocks in detail with a pen .

With the triptych Visit (2019), the pink curly shapes dominate at first glance, but the details invite you to stand with your nose at work and peek into an intimate, small, dark and cozy room. Kooi’s self-portrait of her belly is also a relief: her natural, soft belly as it looks after having a child has a radiant halo.

The aging body and age discrimination are themes that generally weigh more heavily on women. Next to Kooi, artist Lily van der Stokker (1968) addresses this with her sign in the shape of a pink cloud: ‘only yelling older women in here/ Nothing to see‘. Packaged in a light-hearted form, she addresses a serious issue in which the voices of older women are dismissed as insignificant.

Barbie pink outfits

The exhibition feels like a throwback (or continuation of) the 2010s, when the color ‘millenial pink’ was all the rage. Sugary art is not reserved for artists who identify as women. For example, there is a stylish video in which Alex Naber, a queer artist with Down syndrome, together with drag queen ChelseaBoy, make contact with each other in Barbie-pink outfits in a natural landscape.

There is much new to discover in the extensive exhibition, such as the work of the Vietnamese-French My-Lan Hoang-Thuy (1990), which varies in size from modest to tiny. The printed shells with self-portraits of the naked artist are especially moving: like little pearls in the shiny inside of a shell. She drew inspiration from Asian applied arts, including furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Her parents were from upper aristocracy in Vietnam, but had to leave everything behind when they migrated to France. The glossy surfaces and opulent motifs are a reminder of what once was.

I hit you with a flower is intended as a tribute to ‘girls’ art’, which is now used as a nickname. The question is whether you should want to use every negative stereotype as a badge of honour. When considering the (re)appreciation of female artists, it can be imagined that they would rather not be remembered as pioneers of ‘girls’ art’, just as men would not be happy with the label ‘boys’ art’. Perhaps ‘sweet power art’ would be a more appropriate term: sweet art with a bite.

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