The ideal man project - Artoll - januari 2011

Artists and scientists seek the ideal man!

What is the ideal man? What is the ruling image? What do men think
themselves? Will the traditional relationships ever change? Are we going
to interact differently? Is there a new man coming?
What started three years ago as a personal search of Anja Sijben for
the ideal man, expanded in January 2011 in a collaboration between
international artists and scientists.
Three weeks of work, discussions and exchange in a laboratory situation
in ArToll, Bedburg Hau, Germany. All finalized with two days of exhibition,
lectures, workshops and activities.

Attending artist:
Naomi Akimoto (jp) Casper ter Heerdt (nl) Nicolaj Dudek (de) Elaine
Vis (nl) Michaela Kuhlendahl (de) Matthijs Muller (nl) Milan Gies (nl) Heather Allen (uk) Guda Koster (nl) Anja Sijben (nl)

In this blog you will first find two PR registrations, followed by impressions of the work of the attending artists.

Press, University of Nijmegen

Press Antenne Niederrhein

Anja Sijben

The sound work “I want more” is the internal monologue in one’s head. The inevitable urge of people to want better, bigger, more. It is a drive which makes us move forward and makes it possible to create. For which we need a concept of the ideal man for. To strive towards something ideal, which is not there in reality. And never will be, but the urge will stay alive.

Casper ter Heerdt

I started out by building a huge column like the ones our heroes used to stand on. My work applies solely to the human part of this ‘ideal’. Instead of looking for perfection I search for possibilities. I’m interested in the question ‘Who we are? instead of what we should be like. My column developed from a classical structure into a building for men to live in. I’ve played with images from cultural history and ordinary life. ‘David’ wears pink underpants and the ‘Thinker’ is on the toilet.

Nicolaj Dudek

My work is a way of drawing around the construction of an ideal man and cycling and surfing at the same time around the cliché of the Ideal Man in an ironically and humorous way. There are two approaches: one is ‘mechanical’-like drawings, that represent the construction of something and offer a way to explore the thoughts and feelings of the artist’s mind about the theme, and at the same time to relate to it. The other is ideas of certain aspects that I try to change and turn into another way of thinking e.g. the ‘muscle-drawings’, using the muscles as a symbol for male physical power and transferring them into other meanings by a desired grade of abstraction. As you can see, nothing is ideal, but for now...

Milan Gies

I think there is no such thing as the ‘ideal’ man, one needs ideals. But those ideals should always be reflected and placed in one’s own context. Otherwise we start creating super ideals, which make the world hard and unreal. There is perfection through the existence of imperfection.

The video “You have beautiful eyes” I made by using an existing exercise from a theatre school. Man struggles with being open and vulnerable. With striving and not being good enough.

Elaine Vis

Ideal men are powerful. Our world is made up winners. A man has to have a career to prove himself. Power was previously transferred by blood relationship, nowadays power has to be worked for. The base for the Ideal Man was the theme ‘man and power’. The classic men’s suits show male identity as a ruler. Each fabric represents a different individuality; the negotiator, the visionary, the networker; skills required for proper functioning are reflected in the fabric. Major decisions are always taken at the table. Under this table, the atmosphere changes, obscure things happen, there are unconscious processes that are not controllable. The beauty of power is undermined? Is our deepest fear that we are inadequate?

Heather Allen

As a child in the 50’s and 60’s I was brought up with the expectation that my ideal man (‘the right man for me’) would one day appear and sweep me off into a happy future. As he never arrived I can only assume that he got lost on the way...

Working on this project I’ve had to think about him again, and my thoughts go this way; I see the ideal man as a construct, the projected sum of society’s needs at any given time. BUT there are ideal moments for different reasons with different people (men and women). I like this idea much more; it opens things up. My work for this project is about ‘moments’ which could in a way be ideal. My self-portrait figures sometimes look inwards, deep in thought, sometimes they look outwards, playful, curious or anxious, sometimes they interact with each other - we all do that. Their actions are not ‘completed’, they are still open about what to do, which direction to take, and this could be exactly the right moment for the ideal decision...

Michaela Kuhlendahl

For the ‘ideal-man-project’ I have chosen to work with the hairy male body. Instinctively, hair does feel like a very personal bodily property and in its mythical meaning it is an expression of male and sexual power. So it has a certain charm that the men who donated their hair for my installations were conscious of the fact that I would use it as ‘material’ and that it would become alienated in the art work. The fact that several men refused to donate their hair makes the personal aspect even more obvious. Finally, I like the striking graphic quality of hair, so that in the end I didn´t work with ‘material’ but with lines and colors.

Naomi Akimoto

My work consists of two different approaches. One is the microscopic view, zooming in onto the mascular biological world on microscopic scale, resulting in drawings and an installation. Other work is based on Japanese literature (“Run, Melos” by Osamu Dazai. Published in 1940). The story is a reworking of Friedrich Schiller’s ballad “Die Bürgschaft”. The most prominent theme of “Run, Melos!” is unwavering friendship. Despite facing hardships, the protagonist Melos does his best to save his friend’s life, and in the end his efforts are rewarded. Also japanese educational stories form the base for my drawings (“Shigeki” and “Tamotsu and Shin” written by Rieko Matsuura, published in 1993, in which people have unusual body parts).

Guda Koster

During recent years woman has become highly emancipated. Man has adapted by developing his female side, but he has suppressed and forgotten his manly side. It is ‘not done’ to show your primal instincts as a man. The ideal man has to search for ’the wild man’ in himself. Lions, panthers, tigers in animal fabric silhouettes on the wall. This fabric has associations with challenge, danger and primal instincts. Men - show your strength, go hunting, measure up to other men and roar! Go back to nature and become the ideal man.

Matthijs Muller

For me the playing man is the ideal man. Playing is the source of all creativity. Whilst playing the man gets absorbed by his desires. My installations and objects, where the hand of Man is shown everywhere but the absence of the human is striking, are about the boundaries of control. With directly appealing, at first sight lightly and quickly recognizable work, I confront the viewer with unbridgeable contradictions. The use of material plays an important role, and a rearranging of materials, objects and context so that alienation and ambivalence arise.

01 Poptahof residency october 2009: The ideal man house

Door Anja Sijben

In a flat scheduled for demoltion in the neighbourhood ‘ Poptahof’ in Delft, five artists invited by Anja started their ‘ideal man project’. Anja Sijben, Ine Geraedts, Meg Mercx, Rob Verwer, Rob Visje, started discussing and fabricating work around the theme. Between the five, many knowledgeable and inspirational exchanges took place in the house.


Poptahof, a typical area. Many skyscrapers and housekeeping with a colourful inhabitation from many cultural backgrounds. This was a trigger for discussion. Some artists were born in a similar neighbourhood, others had lived in such an area. And for others it was amazing how quiet it was, enjoyable with a small garden and green scenery, and the many community employees who cleaned the neighbourhood every day. We were astonished how clean this neighbourhood was kept. And how abandoned! Hardly anyone on the street. At a certain moment Anja went shopping in the mall opposite our house. There they were! Just like the Kalverstraat, the main shopping street in Amsterdam. Beautiful sun outside and the people sat on the terrace inside the covered mall….. For her the little garden meant being closer to nature then living in Amsterdam, but for them this nature obviously didn’t exist or there was no need to enjoy the sun more, nor was fresh air needed. Remind her a little bit of Omaha, Nebraska, USA were she asked the local people whether there was something interesting to see at the other side of the river. Not really, they answered, the same shops are also closer by….Is the consumerism already that far that people only think in shops and outside this don’t experience anything anymore?

If we are in Omaha or in Delft, were is the ideal man that defines his own goal and direction in life and doesn’t let himself be influence by what is presented at him. A point of discussion in the ideal man house.

A short impression through the house and the works made during our stay.

02 The ideal man tinkers

An ideal man has a place where he can tinker and investigate, research into not developed roads. He is curious and can be occupied with something for hours until he finds what he is looking for, in the meantime executing all the little jobs needed to do in the house. Not postpone but just execute them right away. Rob Verwer has expressed his curiosity, his playfulness and his tendency toward technique and building with day-to-day objects in his work by entering the ideal man house. And who listens carefully: a composition of sounds!

03 The ideal man laboratory

The kitchen table was the central meeting place in the house, the so-called laboratory in search of the ideal man. Here many discussions took place about the ideal man. Our collective created work was in a shortened version projected on the wall in the kitchen during the presentation on October 25th 2009. The visitors at the table formed an extension of the discussion group.

The ideal man as a ‘mythoman’, the ideal man in the feministic time period, the ideal man in books and films.



Also ideal man fantasy drawings aroused on the kitchen wall, inspired by the research in the laboratory. In old brown tiles, well known, where we as children could see monsters and other fantasies, again and again and every time see something different…

04 The ideal man and power

The ideal man as leader, idol for many people. This in contrast with the man without a name, as a number, all the same, all together as an offer for the ideal. Who is ideal? Is that idol as ideal as it seems? Ine Gereadts shows her video in the prior living room. Her subtleness in sensing, representing, combined with vulnerable dictated voices strengthens the drama.

05 The ideal man impression from media

The bouquet book series lead to Meg Mercx work. The ideal man in the media and film and how does film and media influence the view that adolescents have of the ideal man. Together with Rob Verwer, they interviewed 14 – 16 years old: what is your ideal man? The same survey was also asked to elderly people. A selection from all the collected expressions was the wallpaper in the staircase of the house.



In the pink rose girl’s bedroom the real ideal man was carries by Barbie Ken’s. Or did the attention of the visitor slip to the ideal kisses in shown films? Meg’s magnificent realistic way of painting of the human body brings the visitor with both legs return back on earth.

06 The ideal man in dreams

In another bedroom the ideal man in Anja Sijben’s dreams came back in drawings on the wall. Also she was inspired by the wallpaper, holes in the wall, even by the electricity plugs in the room. The lines which arose after the wallpaper was torn from the wall were inspiration for the contours of the men. Now and then the visitor saw them loom up again on the wall, or did they really came to live? The vulnerable way of drawing, sometimes rarely visible lines let the visitor think whether they really exists, those dreams..

07 The ideal man on the street

Ine Geraedts presented a video with two lively dancing men in a park, combined with a contrast of two man on a beach, sometimes synchronic turning to let also tan their other side by the sun. Or can the ideal man sooner be found in the neighbourhood? Many pictures of men spotted in the neighbourhood made the visitors wonder so.

08 The ideal man in- or outdoors

Also Rob Visje was inspired by the neighbourhood. In the Poptahof area, would the ideal man be there? And how will he behave outdoors and how indoors? A temptation for Rob Visje to create a piquant version of the ideal man in- and outdoors at the same time. The painting, a little too vehement to present behind the windows at the street side, we decided. Presented instead in a small sleeping room increased the secrecy even more. In his way of painting letting come back the raw reality.

09 The ideal man in body power

To make space for the painting ‘the naked man’ of Rob Visje, a wardrobe closet had to be removed. We found this an ultimate expression of an ideal man. He brakes down a closet without tools and measures his powers, he attacks his opponent (in this case the closet) with his own body. In cooperation Rob Verwer and Anja Sijben captured this action on video and presented it in the shower through a little hole cut out in the shower door.