CARE MATTERS | An exhibition from the VERBUND COLLECTION, Vienna

Albertina is showcasing the CARE MATTERS exhibition at the Tietze Gallery. An exhibition from the VERBUND COLLECTION, curated by its founding director Gabriele Schor, with around 50 works by 33 Austrian and international artists on the socially relevant topic of caregiving and care work. The dedicated group exhibition, in which many works can be seen in Austria for the first time, illustrates the artistic transformation from the feminist avant-garde of the 1970s to contemporary positions across five rooms. Many of these works have only recently been acquired by the VERBUND COLLECTION. The exhibition aims to raise awareness and increase appreciation of care work, the majority of which is carried out by women.

Care, caregiving and nurturing are the foundation of our social coexistence. Even in 1942, when the French writer Albert Camus was thinking about the value of life, he wrote, referring to Martin Heidegger, "Simple care is the beginning of all things". The word "to care" has a double meaning: to care about someone and to care for someone. While the first meaning appeals to feelings and emotions (for example, we care about family, work, finance, climate, and war), the second meaning refers to the executive function. This has an ambivalent character. It can have a positive impact on people’s identity or may be characterised by effort, duty, time-consuming strain and dependence.

Care covers a wide and diverse field, with the majority of the exhibition focussing on social issues. The CARE MATTERS exhibition on VERBUND COLLECTION is devoted to existential areas of care and caregiving. It focuses on the activities that determine our everyday lives, are often hidden, and are mostly carried out by women.

The exhibition starts in the kitchen, which is still read as a female, unless we are thinking about paid restaurant work. Female artists develop an independent sign language of the kitchen with objects and installation works. Curator Gabriele Schor explains: "In the 1970s, the female body appeared as an object of domestic order, as with Birgit Jürgenssen, Martha Rosler, Margaret Raspé and Karin Mack. The housewife is trapped in her identity politics in the context of power, gender and economy. While the younger generation of artists is drawing attention to stoves (Sophie Gogl), kitchen utensils (Lena Henke) and crockery (Nicole Wermers), the housewife, the subject of caregiving, is absent. This absence refers to the character of contemporary works. Feminist object culture becomes a bearer of a different social experience."

Works by Sandra Eleta (Panama), Natalia Iguiñiz Boggio (Peru), Letícia Parente (Brazil), Mary Sibande (South Africa) and Lorna Simpson (USA) shed light on how reproductive work is outsourced, how it is borne especially by black women, people of colour and indigenous women in these countries, irrespective of their own household, and how these groups are affected by social disadvantage based on racist and colonial heritage. Works by the artists Eleta, Iguiiz ñ Boggio, Parente and Sibande can be seen in Austria for the first time.

The third room of the exhibition is devoted to the area of tension between parenting and artistic practice. How can parenthood and artist careers be reconciled? Works by Renate Bertlmann, Annegret Soltau, Hannah Cooke and Hansel Sato point to the balancing act of family responsibility, mental load, equal care and social expectations toward mothers, fathers and parents.

Due to the increased ageing population and rising life expectancy in Western industrialised countries, we face great challenges in managing care for the elderly. For the first time in Austria, Japan’s Akihito Yoshida shows touching photographs of intergenerational cohesion in the care of the elderly. In these times of increasing crisis experiences, Norwegian artist Frida Orupabo explores community building, pragmatism, but also demarcation, vulnerability and dependence, with her large-scale collage. Taking care of oneself also strengthens coexistence. Both artists depict care as a practice of relationships, as a relational and communal state of being there for one another.

The show ends with the unrelenting work of Kirsten Justesen, See Red Women’s Workshop, Marlene Haring, Małgorzata Markiewicz, Anna Schölß and Christine Lederer. Their artistic positions express, with irony and humour, displeasure and frustration with the growing burden of caregiving.

CARE MATTERS asks key social questions: if care work is essential for living together, why does it receive so little social and economic recognition and appreciation? Why do women continue to undertake the majority of care work, often in precarious conditions? The exhibition sees itself as a contribution to making visible and valuing the work that our society cannot do without.

VERBUND CEO Michael Strugl: "The CARE MATTERS exhibition is a continuation of the VERBUND COLLECTION’s long-standing commitment to feminist and socially and politically relevant art. CARE MATTERS examines a current social policy topic, namely the appreciation and visibility of care work in our society. The artistic exploration coincidences with the social issue, which VERBUND is also committed to: for more than 15 years now, the two great charitable organisations Caritas and Diakonie have been strong cooperation partners of VERBUND."

Founded in 2004 by Austrian energy company VERBUND, the VERBUND COLLECTION comprises over a thousand works by around two hundred artists.

Curator: Gabriele Schor, founding director of the VERBUND COLLECTION,

Vienna assistant curators: Eva Haberfellner, Sophie Rüger, VERBUND COLLECTION, Vienna