ARTiculAction Art Review - Special Issuue Aug. 2016 | Page 55

ICUL CTION

Petra Paul & Ophira Avisar

C o n t e m p o r a r y

A r t

R e v i e w

Special Issue

how do you see the relationship between
public sphere and the role of art in public
space?
Ophira Avisar: Art history is my

subconscious. It is there to be touched,
hurt and burst whenever it may. Outside I
am a kind of anarchistic, social, drafted
artist. Especially in my performance works.
Feminism for me is a means to achieve
humanism. If I am a woman I have to be
feminist in order to be a humanist. y
conduct in the world is non chronologic.
Everything is referring to and happens in
relations to the subconscious centers.
Contra posto and dada can be parts of a
new necessary vocabulary. I must say that
humor has a big role in my work. It is my
way to state that any point of view is
legitimate. In "Transformation" there are
some non defined hints from art history
that disappear quickly. Some feminine old
forms. I hope banality is transforming to
some questions.
Petra Paul: As I mentioned before, Ophira

Transformation also inquires into the
interstitial space between personal and
public spheres, in which personal
memories and universal imagery find
unexpected still coherent points of
convergence: this aspect of your work
provides the spectatorship with an
immersive experience that forces such a
contamination the inner and the outside:

came in my space, which was actually a
public space, a gallery. We play in this
performance with space. In our societies
the public space is still male-dominated.
As women artists we take the public space,
also in our films. One film has the title
”Raum für Frauwhen”. It is a word play
with the word Frauen. Frauen sounds like
Frauwhen. It means Room for Women
When. But it does not work in english. As a
political thinking woman i say, artwork in
public is very important. For me art is
politically. We can fight with art against
discriminations, art can remember us,
what happened during Nazi-time,… It is
very important to know, what happened.
And it is very important to depict any kind
of discrimination. With art you can change
the public space. For example Karen
Frostig made ”The Vienna Project”, a very

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