M HKA gaat digitaal

Met M HKA Ensembles zetten we onze eerste échte stappen in het digitale landschap. Ons doel is met behulp van nieuwe media de kunstwerken nog beter te kaderen dan we tot nu toe hebben kunnen doen.

We geven momenteel prioriteit aan smartphones en tablets, m.a.w. de in-museum-ervaring. Maar we zijn evenzeer hard aan het werk aan een veelzijdige desktop-versie. Tot het zover is vind je hier deze tussenversie.

M HKA goes digital

Embracing the possibilities of new media, M HKA is making a particular effort to share its knowledge and give art the framework it deserves.

We are currently focusing on the experience in the museum with this application for smartphones and tablets. In the future this will also lead to a versatile desktop version, which is now still in its construction phase.

Sweet Sweat, 2009

Book, 14.9 x 20 cm, 236 p, language: English, translation from Hebrew, publisher: Berlin/Antwerpen : Sternberg Press/Extra City - Center for Contemporary Art (originally published by Babel Publishers, Tel Aviv, 2001), ISBN: 978-1-933128-66-5.

©M HKA

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2024/815).

Literary synopsis

Sweet Sweat, the only novel by Jewish-Belgian Surrealist and pornographer Justine Frank, is unusual, to say the least—a blend of feminism, pornography, Judaism, and art, written in French in 1931. Its heroine is a Jewish girl named Rachel, born in the South of France, who has an outstanding talent for debauchery and crime. She takes up with the sybaritic Count Urdukas and sets out with him on an odyssey of pleasure and corruption marked by bizarre events in which horror and humor mingle. This comprehensive new edition of Frank’s novel includes an extensive biography by Israeli American writer and artist Roee Rosen and a timeline tracing key moments in Frank’s life, providing a definitive analysis of this once-scandalous novel and its historical and cultural contexts. The third text in the book is a theoretical essay pursuing many of the aspects at play in her book and in her art.

Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice

The book can, of course, be read separately, but it is also a part of a project encompassing a variety of media (paintings, photographs, a video etc.). Sweet Sweat is an attempt to defy not only the divides between literature and art, but between the imagined and the real as well. In 2009, Extra City held an exhibition that contextualized a large selection of Frank's paintings by including the cinematic portrait Two Women and a Man (2005), directed by the artist and writer Roee Rosen.

Novel's website

Novel's website2

Add to your list

Media

>Cover 'Sweet Sweat', 2009

>Justine Frank, from 'The Stained Portfolio', 1927-1928

>Justine Frank, the Hebrew Alphabet, from The Stained Portfolio, 1927

>Justine Frank, the Hebrew Alphabet, from The Stained Portfolio, 1927

>Justine Frank, Utamaro and the Hysteric, gouache on paper, 1936

>Justine Frank, Frankomas, oil on canvas, 90X60cm, 1930; The Sisters Frankomas, oil on canvas, 90X120cm, 1931

>

Artists

> Justine Frank.

> Roee Rosen.

Exhibitions & Ensembles

> Exhibition: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE ARTWORK BECOMES A NOVEL?. M HKA, Antwerp, 07 December 2012 - 21 April 2013.

> Exhibition: THE BOOK LOVERS - A Project about Artist Novels. The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, 25 January 2013 - 09 March 2013.

> Exhibition: Book Lovers 4.0 (Pop-up Bookstore). De Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam, 28 January 2014 - 02 February 2014.

> Exhibition: The Preparation of the Novel (Book Lovers 5.0). Fabra i Coats - Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, 18 July 2014 - 05 September 2014.

> Ensemble: The Artist's Novel.