Starke Stücke - Feminisms and Geographies

23 women artists from the collection of the FRAC (Fonds régional d'art contemporain, in English: public regional collection of contemporary art) Lorraine of Metz have been selected to present classics of contemporary performance art, as well as installations, photographs and collages by internationally active artists and collectives that reflect current trends in feminist art.

07.06.2019 – 08.09.2019

Patty Chang

Patty Chang

Patty Chang

 

The cross-border exhibition project "Starke Stücke" ("Strong Pieces - Feminisms and Geographies") focuses on the difference, or more precisely, on sexual, cultural and physical diversity. It takes as its starting point the remarkable collection of 49 Nord 6 Est - Frac Lorraine in Metz, one of the most important contemporary art institutions in the Greater Region. Presenting a selection of women artists from diverse geographical and cultural backgrounds, the exhibition focuses primarily on current trends in feminist art and on the socio-political, historical and intimate conditions of the artworks' creation.

The exhibition provokes ironic, aesthetic and enigmatic encounters (Natalia LL, PL *1937), but also sometimes harsh and even poignant confrontations with the reality of women living in different geographical areas. In Europe and the United States, the limits and sufferings inscribed in the female body were at the heart of the artistic work of the first feminist avant-garde, present in this exhibition through artists such as Marina Abramović (YU *1946), Esther Ferrer (ES *1937), Cecilia Vicuña (CL *1948) and Annette Messager (FR *1943).

The videos, photographs and performances of the following generations speak of physical and artistic self-determination (Patty Chang, USA *1972), Clarisse Hahn (CH *1973), political confrontation (Guerrilla Girls, USA) and propose new forms of artistic expression. Several artworks criticise the cultural frameworks that reduce women to media for the projection of male desires (Ingrid Wildi Merino, CL *1963) or even to commodities (Ursula Biemann, CH *1955). The pieces of the non-European artists Sigalit Landau (IL *1969), Teresa Margolles (MX *1963) and Ana Gallardo (AR *1958) reveal with consternation and irony the urgency of the daily dangers of prostitution, institutional abuse or political violence. They display these positions in an implacable and critical way, while Raeda Saadeh (PS *1977), Cristina Lucas (ES *1973) and Tracey Moffatt (AUS *1960) indulge in a humorous analysis of patriarchal domination in order to assert, with confidence and power, their personal artistic position. Madeleine Berkhemer (NL *1973) responds to the male eye by exaggerating the cliché of the sexualised female body - and transforms red stockings into a hanging installation. The Berlin couple Pauline Boudry (CH *1972) and Renate Lorenz (DE *1963) turn gender relations upside down, stage them and present them as contingent facts.

Finally, the anti-colonial eye is particularly central to this exhibition, with the Dadaist collages of Marcia Kure (NI *1970) or the video piece of Tracey Rose (ZAF *1974) Black Paintings: Dead White Man, in which the power of white men appears in dissonance with the physical presence of black women. Finally, Nigerian artist Otobong Nkanga's (NG *1974) intimate relationship to the world, constructed outside of Western thought, becomes apparent in a large-scale installation in the Stadtgalerie.