The exhibition PERFORMING CHANGE is based on the fundamental assumption that norms and the human perception of reality are a construct and therefore eminently transformable. Thus the starting point for the newly created works of the exhibition is multifaceted: the exposure and transformation of social power structures, the production and preservation of knowledge and the individual role of the artist. With regard to gender roles in particular, Dutch artist Mathilde ter Heijne explores strategies that perceive and seek to change the relationship between the visible and the invisible within social power structures. Gender is understood here as a social category of difference alongside others like sexual orientation and ethnicity. As all of them participate in the creation of knowledge and thereby power, they go hand in han...
Since the invention of photography more than 170 years ago it has been largely women who have used this technical medium to project themselves through role playing and masquerading. As well as the experimental urge to constantly recreate ones ego, the camera has also served as a means of calling into question clichés of female representation. Playing with the image of the eternally feminine was and remains a discourse with gender identity, its social and political definitions and reaching beyond them.
The exhibition focuses on contemporary women artists such as Cindy Sherman, Sarah Lucas, Monica Bonvicini and Pipilotti Rist, who with the aid of photography and video art investigate the female image. The artists explore the question of what image patterns the media age employs for portraying femininity and how t...