Valent1day: Will you come for me?

14.02.2023 - 19.02.2023

Contemporary Matters, Wien / Österreich

Five female artists contemplate romance, love, crushing, dating, dreaming, hurting, talking and making art about it - in five different mediums from five different angles.

The feeling of romantic love and the philosophical idea of love are sometimes bigger than life itself. The highly personal experience and physical sensation somewhere between excitement, shame, expectation, fear and imagination; and the fascinating concept of inexplicable connection between people had been explored in visual art, poetry, music and drama for centuries - with the prevailing perspective being male.... The history of art got spectators and readers conditioned to perceive and understand love from the male point of view (male gaze[1]) which lead into leaving love and heartbreak examined and explored by women to be considered banal, naive and unneeded. But on the contrary - it is the one side of the story that is (heart)achingly missing.

The challenge to approach the topic so personal and hard to grasp or define in any general terms, as it varies in perception and expression from each person, is particularly intriguing for flinta* artists - made to battle (self)doubt and considered irrelevant by the patriarchy. Yet, the most authentic, joyful, refreshing and complex ways of verbally analyzing and artistically capturing love (be it romance, sexual attraction or kinship/friendship) usually take place outside of the mainstream love songs and (male) paintings of muses. It happens in communities, kitchens, circles of friends talking or five artists finding a balance between personal and political.

[1] MULVEY, Laura: Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen 16, 1975.
*FLINTA = female, lesbian. inter, non binary, trans & agender

[Quelle: https://web.archive.org/web/20230807105744/https://contemporarymatters.org/projects/hosted-by-contemporary-matters-valent1day]