ARTiculAction Art Review - Special Issuue Aug. 2016 | Page 56

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

A r t

Petra Paul & Ophira Avisar

R e v i e w

Special Issue

important project:
http://theviennaproject.org. Or Ruth
Beckermann made the video-installation
”the missing image” in front of Alfred
Hrdlickas ”Memorial against War and
Fascism”.
It's absolutely remarkable how women
impact the development of contemporary
art: just to mention artists as pioneer of
performance art Joan Jonas or crossdisciplinary artist Martha Rosler have
actively produced irreversible changes in
various paradigms related to art making.
But while Martha Rosler's works often
tried to incorporate cultural stereotypes
into her analysis in order to subvert
them, you rather seem to reject at all any
attempt to accept any idea of woman that
come from a male-driven cultural
heritage. Do you think that there's an
irreconcilable dichotomy between
Feminism and the male dominated public
space? Should we try to find hidden
points of convergence or should we break
any rapport between such antithetical
points of view?
Ophira Avisar: I am grateful to many

brave woman artists predecessors for
inserting to my world and mind so many
powerful images and statements. I know
there is still a lot of work to be done until
we get to a natural legitimation to talk and
to be listened. But thanks to my
predecessors I feel I can naturally take,
and we took, parts of the public space for
my work. It work. It is mine because I think
it is mine. I am aware to a certain inner
contradiction but I think this confidence is
part of the feministic art action. Me action
being a woman is part of all my choices.
To be is feminine. That's part of my
encounter with Petra. We represent two
ways with similar goals. I say again humor
is uniting us.

26

re-recycling, 6,05 min., Tel Aiviv 2016

Petra Paul: Fact is the public space is

male dominated in patriarchal societies.
There are more male street names than
streets named after women. At the
University of Vienna, there were till this
year monuments for 154 male scientists,
now they put there also 7 women