© Design and conception: Mag.a Jasmin Trabichler. Mag.a Birgit Sauer.
https://www.bildendekunstburgenland.at/2023nku/kunstraum
Sunday, 7 May 2023, 10:00 to 18:00
In the exhibition, the Kunstraum shows works by international women artists who place their own bodies at the centre of their work.
On display are works by icons of feminist art such as Valie Export, Carolee Schneemann and Ulrike Rosenbach, alongside works by Sevda Chkoutova, Elena Steiner, Karen Holländer, Vanessa Beecroft and Anouk Lamm Anouk, among many others.
Thus, one sees female artists who reacted to the social circumstances and upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s with their works and often denounced grievances with and through their own bodies. In view of the lack of visibility of women in galleries and museums, the women artists felt compelled to force radical changes. With works such as "Action Pants: Genital Panic" by the Austrian artist VALIE EXPORT, "Art is a criminal action" by the German artist Ulrike Rosenbach or "Interior Scroll" by the American Carolee Schneemann, important works by these "icons" of feminist art are shown. Especially in performances and videos, they dealt with existing gender roles, addressed themes such as birth, womanhood and the social oppression of women, and questioned male dominance in the visual arts. The British artist Jane Anderson sees her works created in the 1970s and 1980s today as a reaction to the rapid rise of feminism in Britain, in which she was also involved. She created images of women, often with everyday, domestic or personal props that were usually more associated with men, and thus challenged common role models.
Visitors to the exhibition are greeted by the large-format drawings of Sevda Chkoutova. The artist deals with constructions of femininity, provocatively poses questions about shame, morality and female desire between social attributions, constraints and self-perception and questions prevailing beauty norms. In masterful, realistic drawings as well as in a series of humorous, comic-like female figures, the female body image is thematised on the basis of the artist's own body. Karen Holländer places herself at the centre in her poetic, melancholic pictures and conveys moods that always have to do with the role of women, the perception of one's own female identity, the role of mother and personal development. Elena Steiner also deals with societal role constraints, pleasures and longings of the sexualised and socialised human being and asks questions about self-determination and recognition, while Vanessa Beecroft deals with her own body and beauty fears in performances, the "documentation" of which can be seen in the Kunstraum. Anouk Lamm Anouk, who defines herself as non-binary, explores her identity and body in relation to society in her works, addresses early experiences and growing into a gendered body, and challenges the viewer by forcing them to engage with sex, eroticism and female emancipation.
These and many other artistic positions from the exhibition her*spectives can be seen in the Kunstraum. A diverse image of the female body emerges, which is patterned, idealised, hurt or astonished, connected with experiences, but also accepted and lovingly embraced.
Curated by Marion Schimetits.
