Sanja Iveković: Works of Heart (1974–2022)

Curator: Zdenka Badovinac
Curatorial assistants: Maja Alibegović & Andrea Popelka

Since the 1970s, Sanja Iveković’s artistic practice has taken a clear feminist and activist position and has continuously confronted issues of gender and politics. Through her uncompromising manner of bringing together aesthetic and political investigations, she has influenced generations of artists and curators.  

Kunsthalle Wien is proud to present Works of Heart (1974–2022), an exhibition that brings together works spanning the whole of Iveković’s prolific career: from early feminist pieces that focused on the relationship between mass media and ideology, created as part of the Nova umjetnička praksa [New Art Practice] movement in Yugoslavia, to her later projects that examined the transformation of Balkan countries from socialist to nationalist political systems, as well as ongoing projects such as Ženska kuća [Women’s House], which engages with a wide variety of issues related to violence against women, including the sex industry in Bangkok, honor killings in Turkey, and the impact of war in the former Yugoslavia.

Iveković’s works often start from very personal settings and life circumstances, which are juxtaposed with official histories and mainstream depictions in order to explore representations of female identity, female history, violence against women, state oppression, and manifestations of ideology through mainstream media. While covering the wide range of subjects addressed by the artist’s practice, Works of Heart (1974–2022) looks into neglected histories of antifascism and socialism through the prism of her personal history, and it addresses one of the key concerns of her work—the relationship of history to contemporaneity.

Through Iveković’s works, the continuity of struggle for emancipation are traceable. Despite the fact that in some areas there has been very little to no progress, the predominant feeling her practice evokes is irreverence and perseverance in the face of adversity. While the show takes its title from the eponymous work from 2001, which exposed the cynicism of the media’s treatment of the siege of Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it also refers to Iveković’s passion for and engagement with the causes that she addresses.

Works of Heart (1974–2022) is retrospective in nature, but, at the same time, Iveković works here and now: her art wants to leave traces in reality; it has a performative power that strives for gender equality, anti-fascism, emancipation of collective memory, and solidarity. Many of her works are carefully built through collaboration and exchange of resistance strategies with feminist and activist organizations. In the run-up to her exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien and in collaboration with women’s organizations in Vienna, the artist developed a new part of the series Ženska kuća (Sunčane naočale) [Women’s House (Sunglasses)] as well as new version of Shadow Report, focusing on gender-based violence against women refugees in Austria. 

The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive program, which will also be characterized by the artist’s decidedly activist approach.

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Press contact: Katharina Schniebs / +43 1 521 89 221 / presse [​at​] kunsthallewien.at