White_Cows_Project | birgittemoos.com

birgitte moos chalcraft

home paintings installations set design texts cv contact

"WHITE COWS" Copenhagen London Bristol Los Angeles San Francisco Oakland Portland Seattle Phoenix

WHITE COWS was originally created as five site-specific, interdisciplinary art installations to be placed in storefronts located in Copenhagen´s Meat Packing District in 1996, as a commentary on that Denmarks first annual Fashion Week was going to take place in the Meatpacking District in The Hall of the Axe, a former slaughterhouse.

How ironic is that! I found this scenario with fashion models in a slaughterhouse quite contradictory as ’meat’ is not an uncommon synonym for females. Yet the way cows and pigs were and is treated both during farming and at slaughterhouses were unacceptable in my point of view. So the project is an anticommercial for the event, and a commentary on animal welfare. At that point I´d been a vegetarian, in between vegan, for more than ten years.

The essence of the White Cows project is complex, as it deals with the double meaning of factory farming and an obsession with female beauty in literature, media, and fashion. A comment on female beauty and the methods and extent used, to which people will go to in order to achieve this: Nanotech for life-extending and body-beautiful surgery, future DNA manipulation, beauty products containing animal products… Thus, the cultivation of beauty is stronger than responding to the horror of how we generally treat animals, even before we eat them!

The mirrored White Cows twin metaphor is derived from Jaques Lacan’s Theory of Mirrors in which he describes babies' self-recognition.There is a certain model for classic beauty that is copied and multiplied to benefit corporate financial hierarchy. And women we do this by ’free will;’ a narcissistic self-adoration, mirroring ourselves in other women’s eye-catching appearance.

White Cows begun in Copenhagen´s Meat Packing District. Then travelled to L.A. where the project has been shown at various locations, such as at Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG), Barnsdall Art Park L.A., Art Share Gallery in Downtown L.A.´s Arts District, as a solo pop-up Installation at Jess Projects, 3217 Beverly Blvd., L.A., Bedlam Gallery, L.A., Hangar 1018 Gallery, L.A. and at Hotel Fox in Copenhagen. Furthermore White Cows has been on display in the streets of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, Phoenix, Bristol and in London.

11030740_807131246033631_1320199977346675041_o

11154842_809249872488435_4013457670191469351_o

10845613_807131579366931_2915979560009536291_o

10506692_807131486033607_8818565164117287512_o

11080352_807131349366954_4710996736443625834_o

11080475_802420546504701_2040685121643785389_o

11080397_807131426033613_6526681753922886139_o

11009968_807131386033617_1942449314133234104_o

White Cows sketches for sitespecific storefront installations for the Meat Packing District & Copenhagen Fashion Week in 1996

The cows are placed on synthetic grass, and the walls are covered with large sterile white glass squares, painted partly red and dirty as metaphors for blood and muddy soil. The back-projection shows a video illustrating stress hormonal responses to fear, as a reference to the animals' sufferings when brought to the slaughterhouse.

In this tableaux, the "White Cows" mirror theme is seen as oversized, extra tall and skinny cows. They are placed in high heeled boots, with a backdrop of repetitious, identical images of axes.
In an art historic context, the project refers to both Damien Hirst's sculptures in formaldehyde, and surrealism.

These cows are extended further, to the grotesque, headless over heels, placed on iron bars as seen in factory farming environments. The walls are drenched in blood and as backdrop image is a huge axe. The ceiling is covered by a Danish flag, as one of Denmark's main sources of income is through the production of meat.

Identical catwalk models, standing still on a black rubber propel, while the floor is covered in a pool of blood (red paint). The back wall is fenced by tall metal bars, with reference to imprisoned animals and metaphorically indicating the concept of stereotypes of frozen beauty ideals. The wall covering consists of white tiles, typically seen in slaughter environments.

Again, identical catwalk models, dressed in cow skin as fashion and placed on window display, in which walls and ceilings are covered with cowskin squares.

Oversized cow sculpture on turntable, and back-projection of video with imagery of microscopic research into cell structures and blood vessels etc.

White Cows on Acid sculpture

Drawings 2015 - 2019

White Cows Pop up Installation at Jess Projects L.A., 3217 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles

This particular installation at Jess Projects is a no-cost recycler-installation created of found materials in the neighbourhood and in the gallery building.

The works on display in a multi-ethnical melting pot, inserted in a community and area known as a gang territory on the intersection of Phillipinotown, Silverlake, Downtown, and Koreatown.

"White Cows" - Sticker Shock

shock |SHäk| (noun informal)

1 _ a sudden upsetting or surprising event or experience.

2 _ an acute medical condition caused by such events as bacterial infection, an allergic reaction or sudden emotional stress

3 _ a disturbance causing instability in an economy

• shock experienced by the potential buyers of a product on discovering its high or increased price

4 _ a violent shaking movement

1 [ verb with obj.]

1 _ cause (someone) to feel surprised and upset

• offend the moral feelings

Social sciences [edit]

Culture shock in social psychology Shock value, in popular psychology