Rosanna Graf, Ordinary Women – Carrier Bags of Friction, Filmstill, 2023
Rosanna Graf
Ordinary Women – Carrier Bags of Friction
11 November – 7 January 2024
Kunsthaus Hamburg
In her artistic practice Rosanna Graf (*1988 in Munich) creates enigmatic fantasy worlds that always harbor the possibility of unease. Her video and sound installations as well as interactive performances are based on an intensive examination of rituals, myths and the magical. Gender-ambiguous characters such as witches, ghosts or vampires and feminist protagonists take center stage. In a surreal state of limbo, detached from space and time, these marginalized figures fight the creation of their own image.
For Kunsthaus’ exhibition hall, Rosanna Graf produced an expansive 4-channel video and sound installation titled Ordinary Women – Carrier Bags of Friction. Inspired by female protagonists from Germany’s 1970s media landscape, five performers turn into symbolically charged figures. Women such as the German-Bolivian guerrilla fighter Monika Ertl, the RAF terrorist Susanne Albrecht or the actress Ingrid van Bergen shocked the entire nation with their acts of revenge, murder and resistance. In Graf’s new body of work, they serve as models for characters posing questions about female rage and agency. Here these anti-heroines encounter a temporally displaced Joan of Arc: by exposing female clichés and outdated attributions, their gaze inevitably falls back on us.
Curated by Anna Nowak
Curated by Anna Nowak
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