The two Blue Danaé self-portrait photographs were created a year after the making of Tanya Ury's video/performance: Golden Showers, in which, over a two hour period, her body was completely covered in gold leaf by a German art restorer. Blue Danaé 1 & 2 depict the artist seated on blue velvet; the close-up images are of her genitalia covered in gold leaf. The photos are a homage to Gustav Klimt whose painting “Danaé” was created during 1907-08. Danaé was impregnated by the god Zeus when he appeared to her in the form of a shower of gold.

Blue Danaé inspired also by Gustave Courbet’s “L’Origine Du Monde/The Origin of the World” (1866), commemorates a so-called “Golden” anniversary: in the late 1990's it emerged in the press that for 50 years, Swiss banks had secretly hoarded $6 billion of Nazi Gold. The artist presents herself as the proverbial "crown jewels" [1]. While also referencing David Lynch’s film “Blue Velvet” (1986), Blue Danaé in fact deals with the same issues as in many other of Ury’s works:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx“Ury’s performances and photographic artwork since the mid-1990s stage the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxgendered, sexualised and racialised fixations of the discursively and xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxhistorically injured body, positing yet ultimately suspending its utopian xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxliberation from these inscriptions.” Metaphors of Genocide: The Staging of xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxJewish History and Identity in the Art of Tanya Ury by Cathy S. Gelbin in xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxPerformance and Performativity in German Cultural Studies, Carolin xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxDuttlinger, Lucia Ruprecht, Andres Webber (eds) 2003, publ. Peter Lang

Tanya Ury

[1] 1. crown jewels. uk slang for penis and balls because they are a guarded treasure. www.urbandictionary.com