The PM Boudoir exhibition (to be held at Stichting AIR in Amsterdam) is based on a series of discussions between nine female artists. In a group show, they want to create an intimate space where the public can be received and can enjoy extremely personal art-works. Artist Tanya von Barnau Sythoff, AIR organizer, is also the initiator of the PM Boudoir project. Iris Dick attempted to discover the motive behind this initative. This resulted in the in-depth interview about knitting, trances, lace gloves and the relief felt at history`s disappearance.

Iris Dick (ID): What was the basis of your choice? Tanya von Barnau Sythoff (TB). In terms of the artists I invited I was interested in their personal experience, but not that they share a constant wondering. What am I doing?". They do not conform to any general conception concerning aesthetics, society or politics.

It was seeing the work of the norwegian artist Toril Rygh at Galerie a`pert in Amsterdam that first inspired Von Barnau Sythoff to organize this intimate exposition.

TB Her work reveals something that affects me directly, but with, because of it`s exhibitionist character, I also find discomforting. For instance there is a series of manipulated photographs that focuses on her pregnancy and new-born baby. In addition , she presents photographs in small tin boxes. These boxes are extremely mysterious because she has hidden objects such as bones and bits of string in them. And when things which are clearly personal and secret are presented in a gallery, you begin to doubt whether you`re really supposed to look at them.

ID: And whether there`re intended as art?

TB: At first I found it hard to view them in a rational way or as being related to an art context. I`d already seen photographs of phycological forms in combination with organic materials and growths. The fact that I found this art moving made me think that all the reasoning and analyzing I have done in my life has perhaps been a real loss.

Iris Dick, Ruimte 1992