COOLING OUT
On the Paradox of Feminism
A collaboration between Kunsthaus Baselland, Muttenz/Basel, Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg and Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork
13 August 17 September 2006 Kunsthaus Baselland
St. Jakob-Strasse 170, CH-4132
Muttenz/Basel
T: 41 61 312 83 88
F: 41 61 312 83 89
COOLING OUT On the Paradox of Feminism
13 August 17 September 2006 Kunsthaus Baselland, Muttenz/Basel, Switzerland
3 Hamburger Frauen, Maura Biava. Esra Ersen, Sylvie Fleury, Dani Gal, Andrea Geyer/Sharon Hayes, Zilla Leutenegger, Erik van Lieshout, Katrin Mayer, Josephine Meckseper, Renata Poljak, Elodie Pong, Naomi Fisher for the Radical Cheerleaders, Aurora Reinhard, Maki Tamura, Pernille Kapper Williams, Ella Ziegler
Kunsthaus Baselland
St. Jakob-Strasse 170, CH-4132 Muttenz/Basel
T: 41 61 312 83 88; F: 41 61 312 83 89 www.kunsthausbaselland.ch
1 September 26 November 2006 Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland
3 Hamburger Frauen, Shannon Bool, Cabello/Carceller, Esra Ersen, Dani Gal, Andrea Geyer/Sharon Hayes, Jaki Irvine, Katrin Mayer, Josephine Meckseper, Michaela Meise, Elodie Pong, Aurora Reinhard, Una Quigley, Pernille Kapper Williams
Lewis Glucksman Gallery
University College Cork, Ireland
T: 353 21 4901844; F: 353 21 4901823
16 September 29 October 2006 Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg, Germany
3 Hamburger Frauen, Dani Gal, Andrea Geyer/Sharon Hayes, Dorit Margreiter/Annette Baldauf, Katrin Mayer, Josephine Meckseper, MOSH MOSH, Elodie Pong, Naomi Fisher for the Radical Cheerleaders, Ella Ziegler
Halle fuer Kunst
Reichenbachstr. 2, D-21335 Lueneburg
T: 49 4131 402001; F: 49 4131 721344
A project by Sabine Schaschl-Cooper, Bettina Steinbrügge and René Zechlin
The original goals of the womens movement, i.e. legal equality, favorable educational perspectives for women, and combating male violence, have been achieved almost everywhereas opposed to culturally conveyed clichés and traditions passed on from one generation to the next, which are much harder to overcome. But by and large it seems as if the womens movement has become a victim of its own success and has brought about its own demise, as mostly young women, when being confronted with such issues as equitable participation in education and equal opportunities, dont actually seem to notice the areas in which they are still substantially disadvantaged. Hence, they often display negative knee-jerk reactions to and a hostile attitude towards mainstream feminism or affirmative action and quotas for women, and this simply because they dont realize that shortcomings still exist and dont want to be branded as putative victims. For this reason, the term feminism has come to be negatively connoted. Naturally, things are a lot more complex, as illustrated by symptoms such as cooling out or by a study conducted by MIT in 1998 which suggests that that gender discrimination in the 1990s is subtle but pervasive, and stems from unconscious ways of thinking that have been socialized into all of us, men and women alike. A full-fledged womens movement pursuing legitimate goals seems to have vanished; what we can see, however, is that women are very much involved in the workings of social mechanisms. This tends to be the view taken by well-educated single women that belong to the upper middle classwomen who are aware that, having almost the same opportunities, they can also shape public and political life provided they are smart and know how to act and hold their own in what is still largely a mans world. Building womens confidence and raising their self-esteem, a professed goal of second-generation feminists fighting for recognition, seems to have produced tangible results.
According to Peggy Phelan, feminism is based on the conviction that gender constitutes a fundamental category in our social systems. The latter are predicated on hierarchical patterns that normally put men first and women second, giving preference to the male segment of the population in a variety of fields. Even though many demands made by the feminist movement have clearly been met, the cultural image of women still leaves a lot to be desired. There is a certain backlash regarding the image of women: In a time of crisis in employment markets outdated concepts on the division of labor continue to hold sway, as demands for autonomy and full equality are not given the weight they deserve. To what an extent do our societies, men and women alike, still consider the female body the basis of womens identity? When talking about the return of sexism, the question arises as to how young female artists deal with these phenomena. After all, critical feminist artists such as Hannah Wilke or Nancy Spero have triggered a mainstreaming of sexuality in art. The exhibition revolves around these questions. It looks into approaches currently taken by young female post-feminist artists to this issue, and it explores whether or not ambivalence or rejection of feminism can also be found in them. How is feminism connoted? Are distinctions made between difference-based feminism and its constructivist embodiments, i.e. between essentialist interpretations of femininity and discursive-relativistic methodologies that pursue no political or identity-related agenda?
