Conversation with Jane McAdam Freud: Relevancy of Analytic Concepts in Art and Politics

Author’s note: This is Part II of an article about conceptual artist Jane McAdam Freud, which was published on the Huffington Post.
Here is the link to PART ONE.


“A tie is not just a tie.”

Ties and authority: A cigar may be just a cigar, but, in your work, a tie is not just a tie. Can you elaborate on this sculpture? Was it a single piece or a series? How might it relate to politics?

The ties began with a self portrait where the clay dried and the head severed from the body. Left with the collar I added a tie and recognized the visual similarity with the phallus. I thought about Freud’s ideas about objects standing in for the phallus and about the idea of male authority and the ego, about tall phallic looking authoritative buildings –the phallus as a symbol of power.

Later I did an online residency with the department of Ancient Egypt at the British Museum where I studied the Shabti figures and their connection to Osiris. Osiris with his staff and flail is the Egyptian symbol of authority. The Shabti figures are based on Osiris and are in the shape of a sarcophagus. The neck tie is remarkably similar to the shapes of these ancient Shabti figures. We never give anything up we just change its form as established by Helmholtz in his conservation of energy equation where he conceives that energy cannot be destroyed. Osiris is indeed living on and stares back at us from each other’s chests!


McAdam Freud’s “Sisyphus,” in which her looser style is reminiscent of the exposed, vulnerable, and sometimes angst-ridden figures in the work of father Lucian. Rafey adds that the artist is “successful in conveying weight and mass to the boulder as well as strength and perseverance to Sisyphus.”.......

--Penelope Andrew

WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE/AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR PSYCHOANALYSIS IN CLINICAL SOCIAL WORK

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