Gender Bender

“Man’s shirt and trouser —check,light beard — check. It must be a man. But wait,what’s with the soft voice and tousled hair? Is it a woman?” Their flummoxed looks draw a knowing smile from the six-foot Kromminga who has faced greater hostility from this binary gendered world of men and women. Getting gawked at is the least of his/her problems given that a job agency once rejected Kromminga’s CV because the male-female box wasn’t ticked off. Aside from the stir his/her atypical appearance may cause,this German artist has much to offer through a stimulating art installation at Nigah’s QueerFest,MMB

till November 1.

“For me art is a potent tool that communicates intricate issues of intersex and queer politics,” says the 30-year-old who studied art at the Tulane University in New Orleans,after which s/he has shown internationally. This year itself Kromminga has held five solo shows at Arte Contemporánea in Santiago,Spain,at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow Scotland,at the Cobra Museum in Berlin,Germany,the Netherlands and Delhi India. Some of his/her’s drawings are priced between Rs 28,000 – Rs 56,000.

It was at Tulane that s/he came across a book,Xenogenesis ,on aliens by Octavia Butler. “Butler wrote about the Oankali Aliens of which the Olooi were born with both male and female attributes. I could relate to such alternative tales of gender and this began informing my art,” says Kromminga whose vocabulary is a mix of pop culture

and images from 15th Century art.

Through Kromminga’s art,aliens,mutants and freaks are reclaimed from the margins and brought to centre stage in a way that is both celebratory and confrontational. At the Nigah’s art display,Kromminga’s wall installation looms like an intimidating matrix of DNA strands. Entwined in its brown folds are gentle pencil drawings,watercolours,text and photographs that foreground inter-sex issues. One of the watercolours is a pun on the designer Prada handbag.

“I wish a booklet of my art will touch doctors and scientists who control our lives and still see us as abnormal,” says Kromminga,who is part of activist group Organisation Intersex International that lobbies for intersex rights.