Expediternas actio
En studie om tio expediters kroppsspråk i två saluhallar i Stockholm
This study analyses the german writer and artist Unica Zürn´s novel, The Man of Jasmine,1970 (Jasminmannen). Zürn was mostly active in the surrealist avantgarde in Paris during the 1950ies - and 60ies. The male surrealist images of women was polarised in to the godlike, child and the erotic, convulsive object. The mythologizied woman was the muse of men´s creativity. But still there were many women artists who participated in the movement, so clearly there was something in surrealism that attracted women. One of them was Unica Zürn. This study concerns how the protagonist in The Man of Jasmin uses, but modifies the male surrealist images of women and makes a resistance against the construction of women. And by that, she creates a position of subjectivity. I have applied the theory of Luce Irigaray and her conception, "mimicry". She means that it is almost impossible for women to take a position as a subject in the male dominant order because it is so coherent. Women has always been defined as mans other in discourse. But one solution for women is to interpret and repeat how the femininity is defined in discourse and through exaggeration or parody show what has been hidden. To show that women are belonging to another place.