Venus in Pipes, 2025

Sink, bidet showers, shower hoses, floor drain grids, speakers, speaker cables, screen, motor

Venus in Pipes is an installation consisting of ready-made objects, a six-channel audio and a slide show of photographs. A white porcelain sink is positioned vertically, and behind the drain hole there is a small screen. On the screen we see close-up photographs of a sea shell, creating associations to feminine reproductive organs and erotic art.   Connected to the sink there are six bidet showers. Inside each bidet, there is a speaker. The six speakers create a soundscape consisting of ocean waves and of a shushing voice. The bidet hoses, reminiscent of tentacles, hang from the ceiling where they are connected to a motor. The bidets move a little with the movement of the motor, like they are swaying under water.     —   Water is something we use every day to clean ourselves. After passing over our bodies, it becomes dirty and drains into the sewer. Water travels in pipes. It is in control. Sometimes control is lost and water floods inside apartments, ruining everything it touches.   The water is rising. In the end it will drown us all, maybe.   And yet: water is the source of all life. It is the first home for every human being.   Venus is the goddess of love, sexuality and fertility. In Roman mythology, she is also the ancestor of the Roman people – a sort of super mother. In one of her most famous portraits, she rises out of a seashell. Looking inside the womb-like shape of the sink we see the birth of Venus of a kind.   Medusa is raped by Neptune, the god of sea and storms, in the temple of Minerva. As a punishment for the violation of her temple, Minerva transforms Medusa’s hair into snakes. Medusa becomes a monster that can turn humans to stone.   The feminine body bleeds and lures men to rape. It is material and carnal and cannot become a spirit. It is tied to the realm of physicality. It is matter out of place. It is dirty.   And yet: the feminine body is the cradle of all life. It is the first home for every human being and the gate that brings us into the world.   Water is pure. Water is dirty. Venus is a mother. Medusa is a monster. Venus in Pipes is both.