Femmes d'Anvers en Novembre [Women from Antwerp in November]

Chantal Akerman

2008

Installation, 2 x (00:20:00).
Materials: 2 video projections, silent, colour

Collection: Courtesy of the artist & Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris.

Femmes d’Anvers en novembre is a dual projection piece rich in atmosphere and charm, filled with references to early French and American film noir – a deliberate homage, shot in close-up and medium close-up, to the smoking woman. The focus on the everyday activities of women (the core trope of Akerman’s masterpiece Jeanne Dielman) is a recurring theme in much of her work; Femmes d'Anvers signals a return to this motif. In it, Akerman tackles the thorny question of a person’s fundamental freedom to choose what to do with his or her body. A dedicated smoker herself, she defends a woman’s right to the cigarette, which could be seen as a kind of refuge or as a form of resistance – to say nothing of the gesture’s obvious erotic charge…

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