The F-Word

Shedhalle / Exhibitions / The F-Word

Ariane Andereggen, Drawing, 2012

The F-Word
Nevin Aladağ, Ariane Andereggen, Alexandra Bachzetsis, Michaela Melián

12 May – 22  July, 2012
Vernissage & Performances 11 May, 2012
curator: Anke Hoffmann

Curatorial Statement The F-Word by Anke Hoffmann (pdf)

The F in F-Word stands for a way of avoiding saying something vulgar and unspeakable, something that has been adapted as a curse word and cannot be named directly, because the speakers are afraid of ‘dirtying’ themselves by using it. Feminism has become just such a word, where speakers are afraid of outing themselves as behind the times or somehow frustrated. That this is due to a social denigration and the distortion of facts is underlining a renegotiation of what feminisms could be. 

The project The F-Word positions four artists in an open conversation of various formats and individual perspectives. Nevin Aladağ, Ariane Andereggen, Alexandra Bachzetsis, Michaela Melián are all women artists whose works express questions about the current relevance of feminist attitudes, negotiating them without being committed to a label of feminist art. Whether these artists understand themselves as feminists or not remains an open question. The selection of these artists in their individual variability with the subject reflects the reality of the engagement with the public ambivalence and unpopularity of feminism as a critical form of social and political consciousness.

The artists examine in very particular ways contemporary mainstream culture, everyday representations, but also the system of art history for structures of hegemonic gender relations. In their transdisciplinary positions, the artists thus produce strategies of critical, feminist attitudes that are presented confidently, attentively, seriously, and reflexively, but also aesthetically, pleasurably, comically, and in an easygoing fashion. 

A key starting point of the exhibition was the constellation of artists who differ not only in terms of their media expression, but also in their thematic contexts. What they share is a productive mixing of genres and formats of contemporary art, exploring the outer reaches of performative and visual art in the combination of performance, acting, dance, music, video and audio installation, drawing, photography, and sculpture. 
The project The F-Word is an exhibition, a performance platform, and a concert event all at the same time.