Deskur, Marta: Hair-Washing (1999)

Marta Deskur was born in Krakow, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and then at the École des Beaux-Art in Aix-en-Provence in the 1980s. She began her career as an abstract painter and in the 1990s turned to photography and video art. From the mid-nineties onwards, she made a series of photographs and videos of children, and developed the theme of the family into a large series. The people in the photos and videos are Deskur’s family members and friends, whom she has arranged into a fictional family tree. Placed against a white, neutral background, the figures are detached from the context of the present, emphasising poses, gestures, body language and relationships between people. In her paintings, the artist depicts everyday situations and simple activities, which refer to biblical scenes and their iconography (Visitation, Three Kings, Last Supper, Washing of the Feet, etc.). While the couplet of the work recalls the story of Christ and Mary Magdalene (Mary Magdalene soaked Christ’s feet with her tears and then wiped them with her hair), the roles are reversed in Hair-Washing: the man, seen only from the thigh down, drips water on the hair and neck of the woman kneeling at his feet with her head bowed. The scene can evoke associations of both mutual care and humiliation, of repentance, through a combination of few, enigmatic but powerful imagery, while also raising questions about the modern family, roles and power relations.

Krisztina Szipőcs