A FEMINIST AVANT-GARDE: photographs and performances of the 1970s from the VERBUND COLLECTION, VIENNA

Simone de Beauvoir: "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman."

The international exhibition "Une Avant-garde féministe des années 1970" focuses on the construction of womanhood, investigates what it means to be a woman in the 1970s, exposes stereotypes and clichés and shows how female artists radially, subversively and ironically create a whole new "image of the woman" from the woman's perspective, for the first time in the history of art. With their works, the female artists condemned social inequality, patriarchal power structures and sexism: "The personal is political!"

The show is arranged into five topics: the exclusive perception as "housewife, mother and spouse", the resulting feeling of "being locked in", the questioning of the "diktat of beauty and the presentation of the female body", the exploration of "female sexuality" and the discussion of manifold "female identities and roles".

The reference in the title to "an" (the feminine article "une") avant-garde recalls the many feminist movements in respect of nationality, culture and age. The works of the exhibition were brought together through 18 years of research work, which takes a somewhat European look at the 1970s. Many female artists at the time distanced themselves from male-dominated painting and turned to the new media of photography, video and performance.