07.02.–14.04.2013
Main Hall

Iris Andraschek
Where to Draw the Line

Opening: February 6, 2013, 7 p.m.

The title of the exhibition is ambiguous; it inquires about the place where a limit is laid out. Who sets boundaries, who makes rules for whom? Where are our rights to determine them for ourselves?

Many of the places in which Iris Andraschek has worked in recent years experienced significant transformations that led to the erosion of traditional structures and basically forced a repositioning of individuals and society. Her interest lies in these new positions between the desires for self-actualization and feeling secure in the community.

The title also refers to the artist’s work with drunken girls whose bodies have been drawn upon. A kind of initiation rite pushes many girls into a phase of exaggerated femininity with high-heeled shoes, short skirts, and parties with a lot of alcohol. The rituals of the age group, which Stephen Heath described as “In the masquerade the woman mimics an authentic – genuine – womanliness,” are addressed by the artist on many levels: the resolute independence and persistence in risky behavior as an artist, the importance of the camera and of recording and publishing the photos as a photographer, the act of drawing on the body as a drawer, as well as how men of the same age access these images in the role of arrangers, voyeurs, and publishers online, and older men as moralists and interpreters.

Iris Andraschek, born 1963 in Horn, lives and works in Vienna. www.irisandraschek.com