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dropped a stitch. In the end, you could
count the number of dropped stitches
and come up with a kind of gruesome
balance sheet. Between 16,000 and
40,000 people were executed by guillo-
tine during the French Revolution's reign
of terror from 1793 to 1794.
Stories like this have inspired artist
Kjersti G. Andvig to clothe a guillotine
in knitting. Her knitted works of art are
clearly much more than what might be
produced by your grandmother.
"That 'safe' aspect of knitting that feels
safe becomes much stronger when it
addresses dangerous themes. Artists
use knitting to talk about something
altogether different than knitting. They
use traditional crafts as a way to make a
statement about anything but traditional
stories. Many of us are familiar with the
technique, but when it appears in an
unfamiliar context it confuses people
and many find it thought-provoking,"
says Liv-Ragna Garden, who wrote her
master's thesis in fine art on knitted art.
Grace shock
Coup de Grâce!
– the death blow – is
the name of the guillotine that Kjersti
G. Andvig covered in wool. She learned
how to knit in 2005, and just one year
later she had started to work with a pro-
ject called Knit until Death. The project
is about the death penalty and consists
of six different works of art, the most
spectacular of which is perhaps
No One
Here is Innocent
, a life-sized sculpture of
a prison death cell in Texas, USA. She
worked on the project with Carlton A.
Turner, the prisoner who sat in the cell
for nine years before he was executed in
July 2008. The sculpture's dimensions are
300x200x240 cm.
"Her opposition to the death penalty
is motivated both by the horror of the
state taking people's lives, but also by the
pressure and the inhumanity that the
condemned man experiences as a result
of all the waiting. She examines the pa-
radox that the condemned have so little
time on this Earth, but at the same time,
time is the only thing they have. And
this is where she believes that knitting
can make a contribution in commenting
on and demonstrating in an understan-
dable way the horribleness of the death
penalty," wrote Garden in her thesis.
Thought-provoking
Knitting is also a thought-provoking
artistic method. Liv Reidun Brakstad
is a pioneer in the world of knitted art.
Her work is provocative without actually
doing anything particularly provocative
at all.
"She dresses up in suits and shows up
at religious or historical sites around
the world to knit. This is a performance
where she knits alone or with others.
The suit is a symbol of manliness and
power, while knitting is most associated
with something harmless, and cuddly
grandmothers. Brakstad also experiences
many negative reactions when she does
this performance," says Garden.
Women artists mostly produce knitted
art. The Strikknikk exhibition, which
was the inspiration for Garden's master's
thesis, featured artwork by twelve wo-
men and four men. But knitting has not
always been women's work.
"Queen Elizabeth I decided in the 16th
century that women should also be
allowed to sell their knitting. This had
previously been controlled by guilds, and
guilds were reserved for men. Queen
Elizabeth I also created a market for
women's knitted products, when she
decided that all boys and men should
wear knitted hats in churchon Sundays,"
Garden says.
Over time, however, knitting was
relegated to a low status activity. It has
only recently become trendy to do what
Grandma did, and even young skaters
have begun to knit their own headbands.
Garden names several artists who use
sweaters that have been partly unravel-
led and other knitting to create their
artwork. In this way, they use the story
that was incorporated in the knitting by
the previous person who produced the
object.
"Kari Steinhaug's exhibitions include
class pictures knitted from old jackets,
and Madonna pictures knitted from old
gloves, where both the jacket and gloves
are a part of the artwork," Garden says.
A cuddly bear – of lead
The technique used to produce the knit-
ting tells a story, but so does the material
in the knitting. David Cole, one of the
few men whose work was included in
the Strikknikk exhibition, received the
most press coverage for his piece. One
reason for that may be that he challenges
people through his use of materials, says
Garden.
His piece,
The Knitting Machine
, features
excavators and six-foot-long lamp posts
that are used as knitting needles to knit
the American flag. He has also created
Lead Teddy Bear
, for which he knitted
a teddy bear made from lead that is so
dangerous to touch that it had to be
exhibited in a glass case. His choice of
unusual materials has transformed a safe
cuddly toy into something unsafe. He
has also made a large version (4x4 me-
tres) of the cuddly teddy bear in bronze
wool, which is very unpleasant to touch.
But he knitted it with his own hands.
University of Tromsø –
Labyrint E/11
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47
Text:
Maja Sojtarić