Private Matter
Stefanie Kitzberger, Jenni Tischer
Video
The video is available in German
The realization that the private is political has not lost any of its relevance in recent years, as current debates about domestic violence, the increasing economization of the private sphere, and demands for fair pay for care and nursing work all show. In contemporary fine art, in film and literature too, personal experiences and stories are increasingly the focuses for social and political critique. In an age in which identity politics is becoming a key component of our societies, social justice and the struggles of individuals for cultural recognition are thus no longer mutually exclusive.
In this conversation, the art historian Stefanie Kitzberger and the artist Jenni Tischer look at the different meanings of the two concepts of the private and the public, focusing their discussion on the film The Expulsion (2019) by the British artist Larry Achiampong, which is on show in the exhibition, and the film Nightcleaners (1972−1975) by the Berwick Street Film Collective. Both of these films show the precarious situation of black workers cleaning offices by night for primarily white employees. This discussion thus takes these works as an opportunity to address the political dimension of precarious labor in relation to origin and gender.
Artists
Participating artists
Jenni Tischer
studied at the University of Fine Arts in Dresden and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She has held exhibitions at, among others, Galerie Krobath, Vienna; Kunstforum Basel; and MAK Center, Los Angeles. She is presently teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Stefanie Kitzberger
studied art history, philosophy, and cultural studies in Vienna, writing her final thesis on the artist Martin Kippenberger. Her lectures focus on her expertise in the Russian Revolution and Russian constructivism, and her research concentrates on designs and enactments of artistic subjects in modernism and the present.
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