Exhibition Feminist Avant-Garde. Made in Austria

From 19 February to March 2020, the VERBUND COLLECTION, Vienna, presented the group exhibition MADE IN AUSTRIA in the Vertical Gallery with 16 Austrian positions of the Feminist Avant-Garde. The exhibition remains closed due to the current COVID-19 regulations.

For the first time, the VERBUND COLLECTION presents exclusively Austrian female pioneers of the 1970s in the exhibition FEMINIST AVANT-GARDE – MADE IN AUSTRIA. Starting on 19 February 2020, around 80 works by a total of 16 female artists can be seen in the Vertical Gallery at the VERBUND headquarters. It has been possible to see numerous new acquisitions since the highly acclaimed exhibition of the VERBUND COLLECTION at the mumok in 2017.

Curator:

Curated by Gabriele Schor, founding director of the VERBUND COLLECTION, Vienna

Team of the VERBUND COLLECTION, Vienna
Theresa Dann – curatorial assistant
Ana Sánchez de Vivar – curatorial assistant

FEMINIST AVANT-GARDE

Artists

Exhibition

The exhibition took place from 19 February to March 2020 at the Vertical Gallery of the VERBUND COLLECTION in Vienna.

The picture shows a view of the vertical gallery. You can see a railing and pictures in the background.

VERTIKALE GALERIE der SAMMLUNG VERBUND

Am Hof 6a | 1010 Wien

sammlung@verbund.com

+43 50 313-500 44

Insights into the exhibition FEMINIST AVANT-GARDE. MADE IN AUSTRIA

We take a look at three rather small-scale works of art in black and white from the “Made in Austria” exhibition. They are presented on a white wall in the vertical gallery.

The photograph shows a collection of small-format color prints on a white wall.

Three ink drawings, each showing women, are at the center of the photograph. Other drawings are also exhibited in a display case below.

On a white wall hang 8 colorful, rather small-format works of art by Auguste Kronheim, which deal with the life of a woman.

We look into the vertical gallery in the courtyard. In the center is a dark staircase. Works of art from the “Made in Austria” exhibition hang on the white walls.

We look into the vertical gallery in the courtyard and see numerous small-format, colorful works of art.

The Austrian female artists of the FEMINIST AVANT-GARDE

Against the background of the 1968 student movement, the efforts to overturn the traditional values of the war generation, as well as the ‘sexual revolution’, a second wave of the women’s movement arose in western countries. The demand to discuss so-called “private” affairs in public – such as family law, marriage, unpaid procreation work, pregnancy, abortion, divorce, violence against women – culminated in the cry: “The personal is political”. Women realised that they would achieve more by working together and began to organise themselves. Female artists founded groups, curated exhibitions with the works of female artists, wrote manifestos and pamphlets. Curator Gabriele Schor summarises: “The exhibition highlights how the Austrian female artists covered a bandwidth from actionist-provocative to poetic-performative. The latter was apparently too ‘quiet’ at the time to be perceived. Today, we can appreciate the quality of poetic-performative feminism.”

Installation photos: © Sandro Zanzinger
Event photos: © Christian Redtenbacher