Between the 17th of September and 20th of October 2002, the project.room of the Ludwig Museum Budapest presents a work by the Dutch twins, produced – in a similar fashion to their other sensational acts and projects – in Budapest for their exhibition at the Museum.
The twins, born in Holland in 1971, standardised their own extreme, skeletal bodies in their earlier works, trying in their own interest, to bring about through the manipulation of the media and the fashion industry, an environment in which their seemingly anorexic or seriously ill bodies do not arouse consternation, as they become ‘normalised’. They refuse all suggestions that associate them with anorexia, they say the question does not interest them at all.
By their own admission, they are often victims of negative discrimination at customs examinations, or when renting flats, because people suspect drug problems and psychic or physical disorders in the background to the drastically thinned down bodies. Who, or what rules control our body shape, does it require real bravery to define this ourselves, and subordinate our lives completely to this end? Do we have autonomy in regard of our own bodies? Commenting upon, and questioning the boundaries of the mercilessness of the fashion world’s terrorism as well as the cynicism of the manipulations suggested by this, they also the reach the arbitrary nature of self-destruction.
For a project they made in Amsterdam and Leeds, they published an advert seeking the “Ideal Individual”, and gave their own measurements and some of the attributes of their own lifestyle as criteria. These where so drastic, that the Guardian refused to publish the advertisement.
In 1989 they decided to go separate ways, and while L. Raeven was a nurse at a hospital in Holland between 1989 and 1993, A. Raeven attended the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts from 1991 to ’95 and later became the assistant of Jean-Paul Gaultier in Paris. They joined lives again between 1998 and 1999, and live together in Amsterdam today. In the interest of the greatest physical and biological similarity possible, under medical supervision they have made a work of art out of their whole life. Its most important rule is that they always eat the same amount, at the same time and in the same way. They seek to take a stand in the face of both the artistic and the fashion world, but with the steady increase of their international fame they bite the hand that feeds them.
“You must be successful, you can not permit yourself to be a loser, this is the thing our works are critical of.” The video made in Budapest leads into the world of Ballet, in search of the ideal body for a dancer.
Selected Projects by L.A.Raeven:
1999
– Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, Faks! Project, and General Idea(I) project
– Henry Moore Foundation External Programmes, Leeds, A Christmas pudding for Henry, and Ideal Individual projects, curated by Jeanne van Heeswijk
2000
– Unlimited.nl #3, De Appel Amsterdam (cat.) curated by Zdenka Badovinac
– Prada in Hotekl New York, P.S.1, New York, curated by Alice Sts Obrist, Caroline Christov-Bakargiev and Laurence Bosse
– TransAct, Museum in Progress, Vienna
– Test Room, Marres, Maastricht
2001
– The Infected Garden video program Pandimonium, Lux ventre, London
– Ideal Individual, Charim Gallery, Vienna (solo)
– Wild Zone, Witte de With, Rotterdam (cat.)
– Probans a/b, Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam (solo)
– ARS AEVI rendez-vous 3 ; east-west, Galerija MAK, Sarajevo, curated by Zdenka Badovinac
– Prodigal Prodigy, White Boksz, New York (cat.) curaed by Theo Tegelaers
– 4FREE, Büro Friedrich, Berlin (group show) curated by Waling Boers
– Killer Queen, Casco Projects, Utrecht (solo) curated by Lisette Smits
2002
– The Rulkes, ICA, Institute of Contemporary Art, London ( solo with Annika Larsson) curated by Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen and Christina Ricupero
