ARTgerecht

Can women make a living from art? Sometimes yes, often no!

43 women art warriors enter the ring - for a feminist all-round attack with an existential touch.

When you start thinking as a woman, you can't avoid feminism, Maria Lassnig knows. If you decide as a woman to make a living as an artist, you can't avoid the question that gives the film its title: "Can you make a living from it?".

The answer to this question is worth seeing and is provided by 43 female art campaigners from the GEDOKmünchen and intakt Wien associations, who take a feminist sweeping blow that fills the room and the mind and neither minces words nor hangs a fig leaf in front of their emotions, which, in view of the unequal treatment of women in the still male-dominated art world, boil up in a wonderfully taboo-free manner.

Their statements are correspondingly biting, critical, ironic, direct and/or subtle, which initiators and curators Ina Loitzl and the art collective "Die 4 Grazien" have placed alongside each other and sometimes in relation to each other in (video) words, images and installations in a meaningful and broadcast-conscious way: "Too often everyone else makes money from it, but not the artist herself. Of course, there are also a few female shooting stars who are represented in collections and exhibition venues and take off with the galleries after their death, but the percentage of successful female artists is vanishingly small in relation to the entire creative scene, the selection is often very arbitrary and, as in all other professions, women are watched particularly closely. Female art campaigners are familiar with the discrepancy of having to split their time between often several bread-and-butter professions or artistic side jobs," emphasizes Loitzl, a textile and video artist from Klagenfurt who lives in Vienna and is a fervent advocate of equal treatment and fair pay.

Talk & performance at the finissage

The joint exhibition of 43 female artists from the GEDOKmünchen and IntAKT associations can be seen at the Kunstverein Kärnten in Klagenfurt's Künstlerhaus until April 12. For the finissage (April 12, 6 p.m.), curators Ina Loitzl and "Die 4 Grazien" invite you to the sales performance "Alles muss raus", for which all the creative stops will be pulled out. At the art talk, Tanja Prušnik asks artists Inge Vavra, Barbara Ambrusch-Rapp and actress Magda Kropiunig "Can you make a living from it?".

Fighting role clichés and stereotypes
At the Kunstkampf in the Künstlerhaus, it is not visitors but many role clichés and stereotypes that are written on women's (preferably sexy) bodies that are knocked out. The eternal balancing act between career and child - motherhood and being an artist - is just as much a permanent theme as "sex sells" or the attribution of "typically female", from playful behavior in the fairytale doll's house to the fragrant mop in (and with) hands.

And anyone who takes the time to lend their eyes not only to many-faced works, but also their ears to expressive video statements, will hopefully also come to the conclusion that you may not always be able to live from art, but never without it!