INVITATION cornelia sollfrank revisiting feminist art
no.1: "le chien ne va plus" performance mit monty cantsin Friday, 7 July 2006, 6:00pm
phoenix-shopping mall, harburg
hannoversche straße 86, hamburg-harburg
meeting point: main entrance hannoversche straße
repeating:
valie export, »aus der mappe der hundigkeit«, 1969
street performance with peter weibel
The performance le chien ne va plus is the first of a series of five pieces, in which the Hamburg-based artist Cornelia Sollfrank revisits early positions in feminist art. The artistic principle she adopts for this series is repetition.
In their own time all the actions being repeated here were a major provocation. In terms of their content, and frequently also their artistic means, they not only shattered bourgeois conventions but on many occasions even overtaxed the tolerance of otherwise radically disposed fellow-artists.
In her 1969 action ‘Aus der Mappe der Hundigkeit’ (From the file of dogliness) the Austrian artist and pioneer of actionist feminism VALIE EXPORT went out for a walk down Vienna’s Kärnterstrasse, taking her partner and fellow-artist Peter Weibel with her as her dog. Weibel was kept on a leash and went on all fours. Inverting the structures of social relations, the male-female relationship is visualized as a man-animal parable in which the woman is ascribed the dominant, ‘leading’ role. Thus reduced to an object, the male body – albeit in crawling four-legged dependence upon the female dog-walker – shifts centre stage of the debate.
The series revisiting feminist art raises a numer of questions: Have these works now been incorporated into art history? How relevant – then and now – are the political statements and the formal innovations of these works for succeeding generations (of artists)? Is it possible to say something about present-day social and political circumstances by repeating a provocative action from 1969?
contact: cornelia at snafu.de
After the performance the retrospective "Peter Weibel. Das Offene Werk 1964-1979" will be open to visitors at Falckenberg art collection.
Location: Phoenix Art, Wilstorfer Str. 71, Hamburg-Harburg