Renate Bertlmann

In 1978, Renate Bertlmann, wearing a mask and veil, had herself pushed in a wheelchair around the Österreichischer Kunstverein. Extremely pregnant, she continued the endurance piece until she eventually gave birth and simply left her newborn lying on the floor. At that time, the artist garnered much attention for work that challenged the boundary between private and the public spheres, attraction and repulsion; she was censured and vilified as a psychopath. At the center of this oeuvre of social critique is an examination of gender stereotypes, an exploration of role-play, and a protest against the oppression of women. Working in a similar vein as Eva Hesse, Judith Bernstein, and Betty Tompkins, Bertlmann deals—in works such as Zärtliche Berührungen (Tender Touches), 1976, showing a blown-up pink-and-purple condom—with fears, desires, and wishes at the intersection of the body and gender, power and powerlessness. Gabriele Schor, director of the Verbund Art Collection, curated this retrospective, which comprises installations, photographs, sculptures, drawings, and films, all accompanied by a publication. It is displayed on many floors of this vertical gallery, a staircase in a company building. The artist’s motto—“AMO ERGO SUM” (I love therefore I am)—the title of the exhibition, implies that erotically stunted and twisted human beings cannot make a revolution. Thus, in such works as the folkloric San Erectus, 1979, the artist always sticks to humor as a means of irony.

Despite Bertlmann’s emancipatory engagement in theory and practice, feminists have accused her of acting phallocentrically, because she often uses the penis as caricature in drawings and latex sculptures and stages condoms and dildos symbolically. In response to this, the artist holds that “patriarchy maintains a gigantic, phallic arsenal to safeguard its continued existence (and holdings).” One might even see her acts of appropriation as disempowering hegemonies.

Translated from German by Diana Reese.