Rosanna Graf: Ordinary Women—Carrier Bags of Friction

The enigmatic worlds that Rosanna Graf (b. 1988 in Munich) creates in her video and sound installations as well as interactive performances always hold the potential to cause a sense of unease. In her artistic work, she explores collective fantasies and combines old and new myths into speculative fictions. Feminist, non-human and grotesque characters take center stage as projection figures. In a surreal state of limbo, detached from space and time, these marginalized figures fight against being stereotyped.

For the exhibition hall of the Kunsthaus, the artist has produced the expansive 4-channel video and sound installation Ordinary Women—Carrier Bags of Friction. Her protagonists are inspired by women who caused a great media stir in the 1970s and beyond. Actors such as RAF terrorist Susanne Albrecht, German-Bolivian guerrilla fighter Monika Ertl or actress Ingrid van Bergen had shocked nationwide with revenge, murder and resistance. In Rosanna Graf’s new body of work, they are the inspiration for characters that raise questions about female rage and agency. As a group of anti-heroines, including a Joan of Arc transcended through time, they expose female clichés and outdated attributions. Their gaze inevitably falls back on us.

Curated by Anna Nowak.