Publications

Julia Freytag, Astrid Hacke, Alexandra Tacke (Publishers): Gegen die Wand. Subversive Positionierungen von Autorinnen und Künstlerinnen [Against the Wall. Subversive Positions of Female Authors and Artists]

Berlin: Neofelis 2021. 341 pages, numerous black-and-white and a few color images, soft cover ISBN: 978-3-95808-255-7

Infos about the book

Authors like Virginia Woolf, Marlen Haushofer, Ingeborg Bachmann and Elfriede Jelinek as well as artists like Birgit Jürgenssen, Francesca Woodman, Monica Bonvicini, Veruschka von Lehndorff, Orshi Drozdik and Gabriele Stötzer have discussed, with noticeable frequency, the ambiguous motif of the wall in their texts, photos and (video) installations by shining a spotlight on their own disappearance, fighting walls or declaring them surfaces on which to project images or write. While doing this, they deftly link gender-critical with aesthetic matters.

On the one hand, the wall stands for the subject of restrictive limits and, on the other, for a safe space that protects against the distractions of the outside world and expands into a creative space. In artistic and literary works, the wall sometimes acts as a screen, an empty page or »a fourth wall (in theater)«, then, again, as an invisible barrier, prison, dungeon or coffin lid. Above all, it is the scene of a legacy that allows the female figures to emerge even more clearly, even as they disappear into it. Particularly in its cracks, the wall becomes a speaking variable that reveals more than it hides. It is less a real object and more an imaginary object that, paradoxically, seals off access to the outside world while simultaneously allowing glimpses and a view to outside.

Taking up space, positioning oneself in it, finding a place for oneself, is in no way self-evident to the artists and authors introduced here. Many of them pursued, in parallel, the subversive strategy of walling oneself off to first create free space and a clear view without prior knowledge of each other. The volume is a collection of essays from researchers from the literary and cultural sciences as well as art history and performance studies that analyze various forms of the creative against-the-wall approach.

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