Notes

Bridget Baker’s energetic practice from the early 2000s encompassed sculpture, installation, participatory performances and photography. Her skilfully executed work explored themes of craft, labour, gender and publicity; this lot is emblematic. In the early 2000s, Baker worked as a stylist in the film industry and shortly adopted its methods and aesthetic in her own practice. This lot forms part of a series of highly choreographed photographic stills featuring various female avatars – Sunday Morning Wonder Woman, Blue Collar Girl, Maiden and Transparent Girl – representative of the “sensible woman”. Working nomadically, Baker would improvise wherever she found herself, sourcing her collaborators and props locally – in Cape Town, Delhi, Ghent, Maputo.¹

Daniel Stucki photographed this lot in the Lötschental Costume Museum in Valais, Switzerland, with Baker performing the titular role of the Transparent Girl. The set design includes a traditional mask worn by Swiss men during an annual ritual to frighten young, eligible maidens, a symbol of masculine power that the Transparent Girl performs her feminine labour – inscribing, into a wooden leg, Baker’s trademark phrase: “Only You Can?”² The black-and-white headshot on the rear wall portrays a fictitious Hollywood starlet and was taken by Pieter Hugo. Artist Donna Kukama also provided assistance on set.

1. Kathryn Smith (2006) ‘Grass Grows from the Middle’, in But being a sensible woman, she subdued her terrors and turned over and went to sleep again, Cape Town: Bell Roberts Print and Publishing. Unpaginated.

2. Bettina Malcomess (2006) ‘Bridget Baker at João Ferreira’, Artthrob, November 2007: https://artthrob.co.za/07nov/reviews/joao.html

Provenance

João Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town.

Private Collection, Cape Town.

Exhibited

Joburg Art Fair, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, João Ferreira booth, 13 to 16 March 2008.