Birgit Jürgenssen's drawings bring things together as hybrids that tap into our unconscious minds. She was a politically engaged Austrian feminist who was able to harness a psychosexual energy in order to create work that asked questions about the nature of gender roles. This was at a time when what were then very macho Austrian art practices, such as the blood soaked performances of Hermann Nitsch, were what the art world was focused on. In her drawings Freudian psychoanalysis is joined with political opportunism as she stated, “between ‘waking and dreaming’ we can learn ‘seeing,’ and recognise ‘a tomorrow’ in the future.”
Birgit Jürgenssen, Untitled, 1980, pencil, coloured pencil, and oil crayon on paper
Housewives’ Kitchen Apron
Jürgenssen was also a performance artist and she used her interest in creating hybrid images to make often humorous statements about the roles that women were forced to play.
Scrubbing the floor
Ironing 1975
Untitled (Improvisation), 1976
In 'Untitled (Improvisation)' Jürgenssen draws with a photograph. By slipping her arm into a leg of her stocking and then inserting the high heel from her shoe, she creates a hybrid image of flexed muscle, (male) associated power, balanced on the heel tip (woman's acceptance of the beauty myth, (see Naomi Wolf), the sexual associations of stocking and high heels, reprogrammed as a powerful image of a woman taking control. I think she is a fascinating artist often missed out when lists of artists are made that celebrate those who were in the vanguard of contemporary practice. She brought the tropes of Surrealism into feminism, and in doing so was able to re-vitalise what was by then, (the 1970s) a very tired set of ideas based on the chance meeting between a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table.
Reference:
Wolf, N. (1991) The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women London: Vintage
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