White_Cows_Project

birgitte moos chalcraft

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

"WHITE COWS" by Birgitte Moos

 

"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" started 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.

"White Cows" as sitespecific storefront installations for the Meat Packing District & Copenhagen's first Fashion Week in 1996

STICKERS



"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


chewing their cud 1. (of a ruminant animal) further chew partly digested food.

2. think or talk reflectively.


               

"White Cows"`Pop up Installation at Jess Projects, 3217 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles


This particular installation at Jess Projects LA 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.

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White Cows Exhibition Los Angeles
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"White Cows on Acid". A scrabble that might end up as a sketch for a new painting. 


Drawings 2015 - 2019

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Street Art 2012 - 2013

"White Cows" travelling. They are very curious and get around...

"White Cows D(O)ublin" in Portland, Oregon 2013.

Modern farmer's wives with "White Cows" visiting The Arts District, Downtown L.A. …

Paintings

"White Cows in a field" - on vacation in The Arts District, Downtown LA 2013


Painting, 2016, 100 X 125 centimeters                                     Painting, 2015, 100 X 100 centimeters

"White Cow, Napping", 2013. Cut out poster on wood.

"White Cows", 30X80" / 76X203cm 2005. Acrylic and mixed media on wood panel.      

Photo by Rick Mendoza 

 

"Female Beauty", 18X24" / 45.75X61 cm, 2013. Acrylic and mixed media on wood panel

Collaboration w. Stuart Noble 2013