The VERBUND COLLECTION was created in 2004 by VERBUND AG, Austria’s leading power company and one of Europe’s leading producers of electricity from hydropower. It is a first-class company collection with a contemporary, international focus.
The exhibition „Feminist Avant-Garde“ is presented for the first time outside Europe, showcasing around 60 pioneering works by women artists from the 1970s selected from the VERBUND COLLECTION, complemented by selected pieces from the Museu de Arte Contemporânea’s collection in São Paulo.
Care and nursing form the basis of human coexistence. The exhibition curated by Gabriele Schor focuses on existential areas of care work.
We want to discover artistic positions that were previously hidden, make them visible, and leave a trace in the cultural memory and in art history.
In the early days of the VERBUND COLLECTION, it placed the art of the 1970s in dialog with contemporary positions. At this time, many artists broke away from painting and created completely new forms of expression. They began to discover their own bodies as a medium. Photography, video, film and performance established themselves as independent art forms.
In the meantime, the spectrum has expanded. In addition to works of art from the “Feminist Avant-Garde”, the VERBUND COLLECTION also focuses on the “Perception of Spaces and Places” and works on the subject of “gender, identity and diversity”.
In order to emphasise the pioneering work done by the female artists of the 1970s, Gabriele Schor coined the term “Feminist Avant-Garde”. This focal point encompasses almost 600 artworks by 85 artists. They make a theme of their bodies, question the diktat of beauty, and deal with the construct of female identities. Since 2010, the exhibition of the same name has toured to 15 cities in Europe and has been on display in venues including the Centre de Cultura Contemporánia in Barcelona, the Centre for Art and Media in Karlsruhe and in the Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation, Vienna.
The focal point “Perception of spaces and places” creates links between groups of works that deal with spatial phenomena. It includes works by Bernd and Hilla Becher, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Joachim Koester, Louise Lawler, Gordon Matta-Clark, Fred Sandback, and Jeff Wall.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, a new generation of African-American artists emerged, growing up amidst the impact of the civil rights movement. Despite some concessions to equality between blacks and whites, ethnic and racial prejudices were still prevalent. At the center of this focus is the question: Can art counteract the spread of stereotypical and racist prejudices? Artists such as Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Sophie Thun and Paul Mpagi Sepuya address colonial history, slavery, racism and sexism from their own perspective.
The permanent intervention Yellow fog by Olafur Eliasson on the façade of the VERBUND building is part of the focus “Perception of spaces and places”. It is visible every day at dusk; during the winter months Yellow Fog is not on display due to safety reasons.
