DIE DAMEN

Invitations, postcards, stamps, printed matter, and editions of all sorts were central to the practice of the artists’ collective DIE DAMEN (the ladies), serving as both key props in and points of departure for their actions. From the first postcard in 1988, with which they introduced themselves as “The four new members of the First Vienna Men’s Choir,” to a beer coaster dating from 2013, their latest collaborative work to date, DIE DAMEN harnessed proven vernacular forms of communication that, combining self-dramatizing performance and photography with generous doses of wit and irony, satirize the art world’s mechanisms and offer critical observations from a feminist angle on art, politics, and society.

The exhibition sheds light on this conjunction of performance, staged photography, and printed matter, throwing into relief DIE DAMEN’s artistic strategy on the intersection between visual art, fashion, communication design, and advertising. It is based on a collection of ephemera and multiples acquired by the Generali Foundation Collection, complemented by works from the Austrian Federal Photography Collection and the collection of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg.