VALIE EXPORT & Florentina Holzinger Feminist Futures Forever
Feminist Futures Forever focuses on the polyphony of artistic practices. It ties together feminist demands, sociopolitical impacts, and different temporalities: each desire for change critically engages with its own past and present while looking towards the conditions of an imagined future. Feminist Futures Forever adheres to this principle and, by looking back at the 1985 exhibition Kunst mit Eigen-Sinn (Art with a Mind of Its Own), brings international, intersectional, and intergenerational positions into dialogue with one another. The individual works of art are key: their narratives interact in spaces inspired by everyday life, enabling visitors to intuitively experience possible models for the future. The exhibition architecture by Dorit Margreiter Choy and Cosma Grosser challenges the museum space as an institutional setting, opening up possibilities for a feminist appropriation and reconfuguration of space.
Feminist Futures Forever features works by artists ranging from the feminist avant-garde to the current generation. The point of departure is the exhibition Kunst mit Eigen-Sinn: Internationale Ausstellung aktueller Kunst von Frauen (Art with a Mind of Its Own: An International Exhibition of Contemporary Art by Women), which was held in 1985 at what is now Belvedere 21.
Feminist movements are characterized by continuity; they began long before the 1980s, continue into our present, and have lost none of their relevance. They have been diverse from the very beginning. This polyphony will be expressed through different artistic positions, media, themes, and generations.
The focus is on artworks that address sociopolitical, gender-specific, and ecological issues, with the systematic expansion of the Belvedere’s collection playing a crucial role here. The works on display critically examine the past, navigate our present, and make loud demands for a shared future.
In this sense, the title of the exhibition can also be understood as a plea for possible new perspectives: Feminist Futures Forever!
