Lunch for a Landscape

Close up of Lunch for a Landscape

A photograph shows the nude artist sitting in a metal grocery cart. It is located on a paved road in a flat, empty landscape under a gray, misty sky. Her back to the viewer, the light-skinned, brunette woman holds her raised arms in a wide V-shape, suggesting joy or abandon.
A photograph shows the nude artist sitting in a metal grocery cart. It is located on a paved road in a flat, empty landscape under a gray, misty sky. Her back to the viewer, the light-skinned, brunette woman holds her raised arms in a wide V-shape, suggesting joy or abandon.
Kirsten Justesen, Lunch for a Landscape, 1975/2009; Chromogenic print mounted on Dibond with matte acrylic, 48 3/4 x 67 3/4 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Montana A/S {Danish Furniture Maker www.Montana.DK}; © Kirsten Justesen; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

Lunch for a Landscape encapsulates Kirsten Justesen’s interest in Body art with a feminist focus. After graduating from art school in 1975, she was a young mother whose studio was “between the kitchen and the nursery.” She began using her own body to make art, creating drawings, photographs, and plaster casts of it.

This photograph is part of a series of critical but humorous images Justesen created called Husmor Billeder, or Housewife Pictures. She posed for this image, noting, “A housewife is on her way in the vehicle of her life.” The Housewife Pictures were printed as posters and appeared in women’s magazines and art literature.

Justesen described the context for this work: “I made this when I was raising two small boys, breastfeeding the baby, and also living as a spouse in a foreign country [Canada]. I describe my life then as a daily ‘housewife ballet.’ I was planning for my first large solo exhibition in Copenhagen in spring 1975.” Lunch for a Landscape became the publicity poster for the exhibition.

Artwork Details

  • Artist

    Kirsten Justesen
  • Title

    Lunch for a Landscape
  • Date

    1975 (printed 2009)
  • Medium

    Chromogenic print mounted on Dibond with matte acrylic
  • Dimensions

    48 3/4 x 67 3/4 in.
  • Donor Credit

    Gift of Montana A/S
  • Photo Credit

    © Kirsten Justesen; Photo by Lee Stalsworth
  • On Display

    No