Art in Japan>Contemporary Art 1930-2004>Jacqueline Hassink: Queen Bees

Original articles on art, artists, architecture, exhibitions, galleries, museums and cultural institutions around Tokyo, Japan.

Jacqueline Hassink: Queen Bees

by John McGee

Jacqueline Hassink, Ms. Francine M. Newman, President, CIGNA Reinsurance,
color photographs (Images courtesy the artist)

In Japan, life without a chair is routine, but no table? How uncivilized. Tables are where we eat, meet and do crossword puzzles. In King Arthur's court, Old West saloons and suburban kitchens, tables have long served as stages for dramas both fictional and real. 

Dutch artist Jacqueline Hassink started documenting the tables of corporate boardrooms in her 1995 project, "Table of Power." In her more recent series of photographs, "Queen Bees," she narrows the focus, taking us backstage at Fortune Global 500 multinationals with female executives in the highest positions. Of the 51 women that she contacted (from G-7 countries plus Spain and Switzerland), 15 agreed to the photo shoot.

Queen bees make the babies, control the honey, keep the hive in order. As was recently hyperbolized by Massachusetts governor Jane Swift (who continued to work from her hospital bed following the birth of her twins), wonder women of the 1990s can be both mother and business leader. So Hassink didn't photograph only the boardroom tables these women used, she also asked to photograph the dining room table at each woman's home. 

Most obliged (three declined), gussying up their dining rooms with their finest china, silverware, candlesticks, etc., at Hassink's request. The rooms range from antique-rich, sit-up-straight formal to eclectic, '80s casual. Some appear to be the work of a designer, others clearly reflect personal taste. But most strive more for Architectural Digest than wallpaper*. 

The company boardrooms are variations on the institutional. Kraft's is as iconic as single slices of cheese—old money wood paneling and brass chandeliers. CIGNA (a life insurance company) is as dreary as a hospital ward, except for some fab, vintage '70s red chairs. And the white doily headrests on bright blue fabric chairs at Seiyu HQ are taxicab kitsch only possible in Japan.

Jacqueline Hassink, Ms. Betsy DeHaas Holden, President of Kraft Cheese
Division and Executive VP, Kraft Foods, color photographs

The resulting diptychs—boardroom on the left, dining room on the right—show typological and sociological variations in wealth, power and taste, with a subtle nod to the feminism of Judy Chicago's landmark installation, Dinner Party. 

It's easy to fantasize about the personalities of the women and the way they direct their operations: Does the traditional rigor of the Queen Anne-style dining room (and her Kraft boardroom), imply Betsy Holden is a control freak? Does the passionately whimsical tropical motif suggest Ms. Rein at MetLife rules by her heart rather than by the book? 

The absence of performers leaves us with only empty stages, trophy room sets where the squabbles, the deals and the powerplays of everyday public and private dramas are latent, suggested but undefined. In an accompanying book, Hassink jotted brief notes from her meetings with the women, e.g. "Ms. Uchinaga is wearing a black-and-white striped suit and jewelry." Even here the players remain little more than sketchy phantasms inhabiting a rarefied, if surprisingly mundane, world.

This exhibition was held Jul-Aug 2001 at the now defunct Galerie Deux in Kakinokizaka, Tokyo, Japan.

©2006 John McGee

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