Cutting Realities.
Gender Strategies in Art

Sept. 29 — Nov. 29, 2008
Austrian Cultural Forum New York

Artists: 
Mária Bartuszová, VALIE EXPORT, Tomislav Gotovac,
Sanja Iveković, Šejla Kamerić, Běla Kolářová, KwieKulik,
Denisa Lehocká, Ulrike Lienbacher, Natalia LL, Dorit
Margreiter, Tanja Ostojić, Hans Scheirl, Kateřina Šeda,
Artur Żmijewski

More than four decades of reflecting on and discussing the boundaries and restrictions of sexual identity, standardizations and transgressions of physical appearance, and mentally pre-configured constructions of social behavior have given rise to a wide range of artistic output on the theme of gender relations and everyday perception thereof. What began as a female concern—pertaining to women’s under- and misrepresentation within society and the need to break down a male-dominated system of thought and action—has seen the increasing growth of male interest, at first mainly within the gay community and later on at the mainstream level through a heightened awareness of visuality and media representation. 

“Cutting Realities” was an exhibition that linked the historic year of 1968 with contemporary approaches to issues of gender, demonstrating how artists articulate their concerns on the visual and performative levels. This show presented works that spanned a timeframe of almost 50 years, reflecting not only the beginnings of feminism and gender activism but also the current status of gendered lifestyles in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. The exhibition combined works in which the body plays an important role in directly formulating individual concerns with other, more intricate works relating to various phenomena and topics surrounding gendered lifestyles in present-day society.

© David Plakke

1 Natalia LL, VALIE EXPORT
2 Šejla Kamerić
3 VALIE EXPORT
4 Denisa Lehocká
5 Mária Bartuszová