Exhibition
The exhibition took place from 10 May to 7 September 2014.
WOMAN. Internationellt feministiskt avantgarde från 1970-talet från VERBUND COLLECTION, Vienna
The VERBUND COLLECTION, Vienna, was hosted at the Mjellby Art Museum, Halmstad, Sweden, from 10 May to 7 September 2014.
The exhibition starts with the deconstruction of the “image of the woman” and how artists in the 1970s even tried to redefine this image. As painting was strongly associated with men, the new media were particularly suited to female artists, who sought a more direct and more spontaneous means of expression, free from the heritage of “male artistic genius”.
Curator:
Curated by Gabriele Schor, founding director of the VERBUND COLLECTION, Vienna
and Michelle Marie Roy, curator at the Mjellby Art Museum
Exhibition team
Ylva Brännström, head of art mediation at the Mjellby Art Museum, Halmstad
Theresa Dann, curatorial assistant of the VERBUND COLLECTION, Vienna
Karin Ekdahl, exhibition coordinator, Mjellby Art Museum, Halmstad
Nora Höglinger, curatorial assistant of the VERBUND COLLECTION, Vienna
Artists
FEMINIST AVANT-GARDE
A-L
Helena Almeida | Eleanor Antin | Renate Bertlmann | Lili Dujourie | VALIE EXPORT | Esther Ferrer | Alexis Hunter | Sanja Iveković | Birgit Jürgenssen | Ketty La Rocca | Leslie Labowitz | Suzanne Lacy | Suzy Lake
M-Z
Ana Mendieta | Rita Myers | Ewa Partum | Ulrike Rosenbach | Martha Rosler | Carolee Schneemann | Cindy Sherman | Penny Slinger | Annegret Soltau | Hannah Wilke | Martha Wilson | Francesca Woodman | Nil Yalter
Mjellby Art Museum
Box 316, SE-301 08 Halmstad
Insight into the exhibition WOMAN. Internationellt feministiskt avantgarde från 1970-talet från SAMMLUNG VERBUND, Wien
Publication:
FEMINIST AVANT-GARDE. Art of the 1970s.
published by Gabriele Schor
Hardcover: 559 pages
Publisher: Prestel Verlag
Edition: 2016
Language: German
ISBN-10: 3791356275
ISBN-13: 978-3791356273
The pioneers
In the 1970s, female artists called into question the “image of the woman”, which had been a product of male fantasies for centuries, by turning away from painting. Instead, they looked for other ways to express themselves. The photographic scene had expanded dramatically in recent years. Art institutions compete to exhibit the most sought-after names in the country, such as Tuija Lindström, Denise Grünstein and Maria Friberg. As it happens, contemporary photo art in Sweden is dominated by female artists who created photography in the 1990s, in which they deal with gender identities. But who were the artists who paved the way for this? In the autumn of 2014, the Mjellby Art Museum explored this question with works by some of the most important female artists of the international Feminist Avant-Garde.
The exhibition shows photographs and videos by newly discovered female artists as well as works by Francesca Woodman, Cindy Sherman, Carolee Schneemann, Martha Rosler, Ana Mendieta, Hannah Wilke, Birgit Jürgenssen, VALIE EXPORT and Sanja Iveković. These artists questioned their role as women, mothers and artists by using their own body as a means of expression. Curator Gabriele Schor, director of the VERBUND COLLECTION, Vienna, justifies the choice of words in the exhibition’s title: “I deliberately chose the feminist art movement in the 1970s as Feminist Avant-Garde in order to underscore its pioneering role. It was a decisive force in the creation of post-modern contemporary art production.” Michelle Marie Roy, initiator and producer of the exhibition at the Mjellby Art Museum, says, “With the exhibition WOMAN, we want to provide a background story to the many Swedish photographers working in this photographic tradition nowadays. The exhibition also make a link to the very popular exhibition Cindy Sherman: Untitled Horrors, which was shown at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm,” continues Michelle.
Photos: © Michelle Roy
Interesting links
Booklet
PDF / 1 MB
