FRANCESCA WOODMAN and BIRGIT JÜRGENSSEN. Works from the VERBUND COLLECTION, Vienna

Staging of the female body

In aesthetic and conceptual respects, the works of Woodman and Jürgenssen are categorised as “Feminist Avant-Garde” of the 1970s, a term coined by the founding director of the VERBUND COLLECTION, Gabriele Schor.
 
Although the two artists never met in person, their works contain many parallels: the staging of the subject, the infirmity of human existence and, in particular, the critical examination of the female body in art. Both artists took their performative photographs alone in their studios in front of the camera, mostly with the self-timer function. And for both artists, surrealism as an emancipatorial method is an important source of their artistic form of expression. Woodman and Jürgenssen are pioneers of the “poetic-performative feminism” of the 1970s and deliberately use the female body in their works as a formal instrument, thereby creating a new ‘image of the woman’. Because the female artists themselves decide to use their body naked, they define the female body neither as ‘nature’ nor as ‘sexual object’ but in a self-determined way as ‘artwork’. 

Photos: © Andreas Marini / Kunst Meran