...not of your opinion!

2011, Installation on the Vorwärts-Building

This installation project interacts with the "Vorwärts-Building", built by Franz Gasser, a student of Otto Wagner. These days it houses the Kreisky Archives as well as the Dohnal Archives, named for the Chancellor who established Austria's first Women's State Secretariat and its first State Secretary, respectively.

The intervention ironically references a widespread and continuing 'male' perspective of the ambitions of the women's rights movement. With its slogan-like phrasing and billboard appearance, it makes the narrow-mindedness of this thinking apparent in a way that is readily accessible – especially to those who perpetuate such ideas.
Above the portraits of Kreisky and Dohnal, we see a fictional conversation in speech- and thought-bubbles that both demonstrates and parodies patriarchal attitudes about the women's movement.
Kreisky was famous for beginning his weightiest sentences with "Ich bin der Meinung ..." ("I am of the opinion that ..."). This is mockingly referenced in Johanna Dohnal's speech-bubble "I'm not of your opinion".

The portraits with the text-bubbles flank the expressive pediment at the top of the building, allowing a view of the large, decorative clock in the middle. By incorporating this element, the intervention admonishes the bygone, but also points to the future.

The portraits of Kreisky and Dohnal echo Hanak's statues of a male and female worker, originating from 1910, which are placed on pedestals at the left and right. Underneath this group of figures, a yellow banner advertises the current exhibition, using a simple outward design suggestive of protest banners.

The two figures interact with the protest banner both optically and in terms of content, creating a three-way dialogue in triangular arrangement.

As this catalogue went to press, it was not clear whether this project would be funded.