Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* - kunst halle wien - Kunsthalle Wien
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Ana Hoffner
ex-Prvulovic*
kunst
halle
wien
Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Freud Film (video still), 2017/2021
2 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Speech Object #3, 2018, photo: WEST. Fotostudio
4 INTRODUCTION
ARTWORK DESCRIPTIONS
6 After the Transformation
8 Future Anterior – Illustrations of War
10 Fifty-One Pieces – Believing in Art
12 Freud Film
14 PRIVATE VIEW (series)
15 Private View – Blue Blood
16 Private View – Modern Members
17 Private View – Big Safari
22 Private View – Special Gift
23 Private View – Silent Weapon
24 NON-ALIGNED RELATIVES (series)
25 Non-aligned Relatives
26 Simultaneous Contrast
27 The Queer Family Album – Non-aligned Relatives
30 Disavowals or Cancelled Confessions
34 Double Still Lives & Speech Objects #1, #2, #3, #4
36 Духовна Деколонизација (Spiritual Decolonization) – Part I
37 The Bacha Posh Project
44 Active Intolerance
32 FLOOR PLAN
48 INTERVIEW:
ANA HOFFNER EX-PRVULOVIC*
IN CONVERSATION WITH ANNE FAUCHERET
56 BIOGRAPHY
58 PUBLIC & EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS
4 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Introduction 5 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Introduction
Introduction and of family as a space for chosen kinship. She* stages moments
of subversion, crisis, and resistance, and in this way attempts to
figure out how a contemporary subject can dig up and appropriate
hidden histories in order to escape cultural, social, and psycho-
Kunsthalle Wien dedicates to Vienna-based artists* Ana Hoffner logical assignations. In a self-reflexive movement, the artist* also
ex-Prvulovic* and Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński two solo shows, which questions the capacity of the art field itself to welcome, support,
take place simultaneously in the upper hall of Kunsthalle Wien Mu- and stand for minoritarian alternatives and non-aligned thought, in
seumsquartier from October 22, 2021, to February 6, 2022. an intensive investigation of the involvement of dirty capital in the
financing of art institutions.
Our invitation to Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* and Belinda Kazeem-
Kamiński follows Kunsthalle Wien’s commitment to showing In her works, be they photographic series, films, or installations,
artists* who question the legacies of imperialism, colonialism, and Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński creates spaces for encounter, conver-
slavery and whose practices politically reframe racism and hetero sation, and sometimes confrontation between herself and the
normativity as political tools that were historically developed (and viewer, but first and foremost between herself and the people who
are used still today) to subjugate and exploit certain territories and populate her pieces, her memories, and her imagination: those who
certain bodies. have been disappeared and who are gone, those who are here, and
those who are to come. Intertwining critical Black feminist theory,
While the two solo shows take place simultaneously in the upper conceptual visual strategies, and (science-)fictional narration, the
hall, they are accessible through two different entrances and sepa- artist explores diverse methods to communicate across time and
rated by a divider wall. The location, architecture, and dramaturgy space. While she critically investigates regimes of looking and de-
were developed to place full attention on each artistic practice codes the racist cultural apparatus underlying the ongoing system
while still offering the audience the ability to cross between these of subjugation and exploitation of Black lives, she outreaches at the
two universes, enabling chosen moments of encounter. same time the violence contained in archives, in museums, and in
books by opening pathways for exchanging, caring, and imagining.
The invitation to both artists* to have solo shows at Kunsthalle Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński’s artworks always choose minimalism
Wien dates back to 2019, and the exhibitions were originally over opulence, dispersion over monumentality, evanescence over
planned for the spring of 2020. But during the Covid-19 pandem- fixation, and openness over closure, and welcome blank spaces and
ic, the exhibitions were twice postponed. On the one hand, this voids. They are continuously in process, in self-reflection, “in the
long preparation time has allowed for new developments; on the wake” (Christina Sharpe), seriously embracing their political task to
other hand, the artists* were forced to cope with an unpredictable set the conditions and to create spaces—real and imagined—for the
rhythm and (constant) recalibrating of the project. The final exhibi- processing of the past, invention of the future, and disintegration of
tions are the outcome of an intensive dialogue, ongoing self-reflec- the present as it is.
tion, and, in some cases, compromise. They include existing works
reimagined and adapted for Kunsthalle Wien’s exhibition space as Being located in a country where (scientific) colonialism is rarely
well as new works produced for the occasion. discussed, where “white innocence” (Gloria Wekker) is an unchal-
lenged social paradigm, and where historical migration and cultural
Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*’s works take the shape of multimedia creolization are still disregarded in favor of a vision of a unique, sole
installations mixing film, photography, objects, and text. She* anchorage in the West, we felt it was important to feature these two
looks closely at the fabrication of history, memory, and subjectivi- artists* who are both based in Vienna and work internationally. Each
ty—insisting on the unconscious at work in these processes. tirelessly investigates racist scopic regimes and practices of Other-
Along which lines of domination and exclusion do these processes ing and deploys aesthetic strategies of resistance. At the same time,
occur? Which stories and practices are swept away and erased? each artist speaks from a differently situated perspective that hinges
How might we disarm the misogynist and racist prejudices em- on dissimilar experiences, resulting in two distinct practices.
bedded in (Western) official histories and representations? In the
exhibition, the artist* (re)tells the stories of queerness as a survival — Anne Faucheret
strategy, of non-alignment as ethics (and not only as geopolitics), Curator
6 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions 7 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions AFTER THE TRANSFORMATION, 2013 Video installation, color and sound, 16:9, 15 min 52 sec What is left behind when brings together several scales transformation means erasing and different histories, from the memories and streamlining be- personal body to the political haviors? How might memory be body, in a subtle and seamless queered in an act of resistance manner. The image editing, against the linearity of history as well as the work on sound writing? In After the Transfor- and rhythm, create effects of mation (2013), Ana Hoffner dispersion and diffraction about ex-Prvulovic* investigates these who is the narrator and what is issues through reflection upon narrated, blurring the distance her* own bodily transformation, between “I” and “they”, be- namely voice modifications, tween individual and collective, which have occurred after between personal and political. taking testosterone. The film is based on a vocal-training session between the trainer and the trainee (the artist* herself*), shot tight to both bodies and faces. With less emphasis on the materialization of a gender transformation through voice, the exchange enhances instead the materiality of sound, the in- carnation of voice, and the tech- nical performance behind the effects and variation it produc- es. In between filmed sequenc- es, black frames feature a white text that reverses the position of the narrator: to be read is a descriptive monologue from the perspective of the trainer. The more the film goes on, the more the subject of the exchange seems to shift: from technical considerations linked to the mastery of the voice and its ef- fects, the conversation, through the texts used to pose the voice, seems to move toward broader political shifts that happened in Europe after 1989. The artist* Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*, After the Transformation (video stills), 2013
8 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions 9 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions
FUTURE ANTERIOR – ILLUSTRATIONS OF WAR, 2013
Photo collage, 14 inkjet prints on handmade paper, each 21 x 29.7 cm;
7 wooden plates, each 48 x 33.8 cm
The photo installation Future dry analytical and theoretical
Anterior – Illustrations of War tone of the short texts, tackling
(2013) features a series of black- the inextricable connection
and-white photographic prints between sexuality, violence,
mounted on wooden boards. The and gender as a basis for the
photos are appropriated from a systemic exploitation of female
series by fashion photographer bodies in a heteropatriarchal
Steven Meisel, which was pub- system. Supposedly opposed
lished in Vogue between 2000 regimes suddenly begin to col-
and 2016 and depicts futuristic lide. When it comes to gendered
scenes of gendered (and seem- violence, fashion and news re-
ingly institutional) violence. Ana porting, reality and representa-
Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* recon- tion, memory and fantasy, past
textualizes the pictures in a and present, and even peace and
minimalist layout that includes war seem to overlap. Addressing
large blank spaces, punctuated the use of sexualized violence
with a text she* wrote and that and its eroticization in visual
reframes, fictionally and cultur- culture, as well as the position
ally, gendered violence between of women, on the one hand, and
crime and weapon, between employing a subtle interplay
representation and reality. As between photography and text
the artist* describes it: “A new on the other, the series places
web journal illustrates the future itself in the tradition of artist
anterior of the war. It transfers Sanja Iveković’s conceptual
institutionalized violence to a feminist practice. The tempo-
stage setting, where the event rality of the “future anterior”, as
of war has not yet taken place, referenced in the work’s title, Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*, Future Anterior – Illustrations of War (detail), 2013
but where it might happen in a refers to something that will
similar way in the future. At that have happened or will have been
point, peacetime injury becomes completed at some point in the
a damage of war, and the scenar- future, and which is put in cor-
io shows how it could have been relation with an event that will
while the image depicts neither come after it. It is a verb tense
war nor peace.” that emphasizes the porosity
between temporalities. Locating
The (over)staged scenes of her* series in this “past of the
violence toward female fashion future”, Ana Hoffner ex-Prvu-
models by male police officers lovic* reconnects past and fu-
and soldiers in uniforms stand ture in the act of looking, imbu-
in sharp contrast to the installa- ing the latter with the potential
tion’s minimalist layout and the for (reflective) transformation.
10 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions 11 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions FIFTY-ONE PIECES – BELIEVING IN ART, 2016 Greenbox paint, wall text, dimensions variable The mysterious disappearance emphasizes the redundancy of of fifty-one artworks from the the story it tells: artworks are National Gallery of Bosnia and constantly destroyed, stolen, Herzegovina (B&H) in Saraje- and co-opted for political and vo during the Yugoslav Wars economic reasons, often with is the point of departure for the participation of cultural this conceptual intervention institutions. The wall is painted interrogating the entanglement in the exact same green used between art and politics, the on film sets to capture green- refusal of cultural amnesia, screen scenes—as if the magic and the magic of art. “During of the cinema could bring back the war (1992–1995) fifty-one the vanished artworks, as if art art works disappeared, under could bring things, whether the unexplained circumstances, actual objects or their memo- from the collection of the art ries, back. Every institution shall gallery of Bosnia and Herzego- have its green wall, to remind us vina. This probably happened at of all those artworks reduced to the beginning of the aggression, commodities in any ideological, but it was confirmed in 1993 by geopolitical, or economic game. the extraordinary control of [the gallery’s] inventory of art works. Interpol was informed. The art works are still missing” (B&H website). Since 2016, Ana Hoffner ex- Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*, Speech Object #1 (installation view), 2018, Prvulovic* has been staging this exhibition The Bacha Posh Project, curated by Karolina Radenkovic, work at many of the institutions Galerie 5020, Salzburg, 2018. Photo: WEST. Fotostudio she* has shown at, following a specific set of instructions that are adapted to each exhibi- tion space: one wall is covered with green paint, and a text is displayed on an adjacent wall that contextualizes the color- ful intervention. The fifty-one absent (stolen) works are thus given presence, as the pres- entation wall becomes at once a space for fantasy and for representation. The variation of the work’s setting sadly
12 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions 13 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions FREUD FILM, 2017/2021 Video, color and sound, 16:9, 15 min 23 sec; cement tiles; 3 vitrines with a selection of Zenit issues, reprint edition by Ranko Horetsky, 2008 In Freud Film (2017/2021), collection, the superimposed sequences filmed by the artist* shots—almost obliterating the during a walk through the for- images behind them—seem to mer Sigmund Freud Museum in contradict this story and bring Vienna serve as a background to the fore the unconscious of for various archival film and psychoanalysis itself: racial and textual materials in superim- patriarchal biases. The third position. Dating back to the layer in Freud Film consists beginning of the twentieth of excerpts from Man Ray’s century and mainly drawn from Surrealist film Les Mystères du the Filmarchiv Austria [Austrian Château de Dé [The Mysteries Film Archive], the found footage of the Château of Dice] (1929) depicts busy streets in Sara- as well as overlays taken from jevo, the march of an infantry the avant-garde magazine Zenit, regiment, the announcement of a Yugoslav journal published the assassination of the Arch- in the 1920s—some spreads of duke of Austria, and portraits of which are also displayed in three individuals such as a “Turkish vitrines nearby. Through these beggar” and a group of “Jew- references, this section of the ish tinsmiths”—all from the film examines the implemen- perspective of the monarchy. tation of the unconscious in These scenes insert the political various historical avant-garde history of World War I into the movements. inner space of psychoanaly- sis, uncovering the repressed role of ethnographic explora- tion, such as these prejudiced representations of Bosnia, in the creation and development of the “collective unconscious” according to psychoanalytic theory. Subtly arranged by the artist*, the montage of film clips seems to outline the contours of the construction of a (West- ern) European identity versus an exoticized “Oriental” one. While the work’s wider frame follows the official representa- tion of Freud’s universe, linger- ing on ancient objects from his Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*, Freud Film (video stills), 2017/2021
14 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions 15 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions
PRIVATE VIEW, 2018–2021 PRIVATE VIEW – BLUE BLOOD, 2021
Work series 2 prints, framed, each 40 x 60 cm; 4 prints, acrylic glass, each 30 x 40 cm;
2 prints, framed, each 21 x 29 cm; Horten tiles, earrings
Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*’s series Private View tackles shady in-
vestment in art institutions from the weapons industry, hedgefund The artistic research Private regime as entartete Kunst—and
companies, and investors of Nazi heritage. Each work in the series View – Blue Blood (2021) con- is currently planning to open her
discloses and displays information and objects available on the in- fronts two Viennese figures. own private museum in Vienna.
ternet, and thus accessible to everybody. The installation’s starting Heidi Goëss-Horten is a billion- Alongside her, the work features
point resembles Hans Haacke’s The Chocolate Master (1982). In aire, modern and contemporary Agnes Husslein-Arco, former
seven diptychs combining found images and text and confronting art collector, and the widow head of the Sotheby’s auction
portraits of the boss and pictures of his employees at work, the of Helmut Horten, from whom house branch in Austria and East-
artist disclosed how the business activities of the German collector she inherited her entire fortune. ern Europe and former head of
in his chocolate conglomerate intersected with his art-collecting Helmut Horten was a German the Vienna Belvedere. Husslein-
activities (e.g., tax avoidance through art donations) and how he department store tycoon who got Arco—who is well-known for her
treated the workers in his factories. Each item from Ana Hoffner rich in the 1930s, buying Jewish proximity to (extreme) right-
ex-Prvulovic* series is a case study of one specific and situated businesses at low prices as part wing politicians, as well as for
example of entanglement between capital and art. All items share of the NS-Aryanization process. the court proceedings around
a similar structure: two (cheap) shiny frames in the middle offer a Heidi Goëss-Horten showed her her disputed breaches of duty
comparative chronology of the two subjects (persons, companies, private collection some years ago as head of the Belvedere—is a
or institutions); acrylic plates feature quotes by the people in- at the Leopold Museum—mainly longtime friend of Heidi Goëss-
volved; and finally, a selection of loosely related images and objects consisting of artworks by prom- Horten, whom she advised in the
hang around the central items. inent artists, from Marc Chagall 1990s. She is also the presumed
to Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, which new director of the Heidi Horten
Private View – Special Gift (2019) and Private View – Silent Weap- were stigmatized by the Nazi museum to come.
on (2018) respectively focus on the relationship between weapons
industrialist Karl Diehl and the Diehl Foundation, and the parallel
evolution between TBA21 and ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems
through the figure of Francesca Habsburg, tackling how industrial
capital is entangled in art investment.
Private View – Modern Members (2021) and Private View – Big
Safari (2021), two newly created works in the series, respectively
focus on the relationship between the Museum of Modern Art in
New York and Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, and the Whitney Mu-
seum of American Art, also in New York, and Warren Kanders, CEO
of Safariland. With these two new works, the artist* draws links
between industrial capital and neoliberal economic empires, as well
as the opaque structures of European and American arts funding.
The last work in the series, and the first to be seen in the exhibition
space, Private View – Blue Blood (2021), showcases some results
of the artist*’s research about the local history of entanglement
between nationalist politics and art business through the relation
between billionaire Heidi Goëss-Horten and art manager Agnes Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*, Private View – Silent Weapon (installation view),
Husslein-Arco. 2018, photo: Georg Oberlechner
16 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions 17 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions PRIVATE VIEW – MODERN MEMBERS, 2021 PRIVATE VIEW – BIG SAFARI, 2021 2 prints, framed, each 40 x 60 cm; 4 prints, acrylic glass, 2 prints, framed, each 40 x 60 cm; 4 prints, acrylic glass, each 30 x 40 cm; 2 prints, framed, each 29 x 21 cm; MoMA shop products, each 30 x 40 cm; 2 reprints, framed, each 21 x 29 cm; green plastic gloves, engraved acrylic blocks protection gear Larry Fink, a board member or with basic ethics; and so, it Private View – Big Safari (2021) sculptor and patron Gertrude of the Museum of Modern Art has become less clear whether focuses on Warren Kanders, for- Vanderbilt Whitney, from whom (MoMA) in New York, is the institutions are really for the mer vice-chairman of the Whit- the Metropolitan Museum of Art object of inquiry of Private “public”. Alongside the two cen- ney Museum of American Art in New York had turned down View – Modern Members. tral chronologies and the heavily in New York and CEO of Safari- a proposal to donate American CEO of BlackRock, an Ameri- neoliberal quotes by Larry Fink, land, a company manufacturing art she had collected in previ- can multinational investment the artist* chose to engrave into military and police equipment. ous years, the Whitney is bound management corporation, thick, heavy plexiglass plates Warren Kanders stepped down to a foundational nationalistic Larry Fink has also practiced the charts of some shares relat- as vice-chairman of the Whitney aspiration and to figures of investment consulting for sever- ed to BlackRock—showing their in 2019 after protests (and an (right-wing) neoliberalism, to al governments, relentlessly extreme rentability (and volatil- occupation of the Whitney’s lob- which Warren Kanders perfectly working toward the privatization ity). Also, MoMA merchandise, by) over his company’s sale of belongs. The Whitney is part of and transformation of pension based on the appropriation and tear gas—tear gas used against a larger group of art institutions systems in investment funds. repetition ad infinitum of Piet protesters after the murders targeted for accepting “dirty The artist* draws a parallel Mondrian’s abstract geometric of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, money”. between the creation, exhibition patterns, complete the selection Maryland, and Michael Brown in politics, and extension of the of market products, materi- Ferguson, Missouri. The pro- MoMA and the expansion and al and immaterial, funny and testers focused their attention diversification of the business dreadful, all financing one of the on the trusteeship of patrons activities of Larry Fink. The most famous museums in the with political positions differing MoMA was established in 1929 world. drastically from the institutions by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, they contribute funding to, as wife of John D. Rockefeller Jr., in well as on the necessity to cede a wave of American institutions board positions to artists within (including New York’s Whitney the communities in which the Museum of American Art) that museum exists. The controversy owed their creation to wealthy surrounding Warren Kanders patrons, even if supported by reveals the separation between city and federal governments. public interests and the struc- The creation of such institutions ture of the institution. Ana marked a shift from reliance on Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*, with her* government funding to reliance installation—again, based on on funding from ticket and the same structure as the other membership sales, corporate items of the series: comparative sponsorships, and private do- chronologies framed in silver, nors. As institutions increasingly quotes in capital letters on rely upon private funders, they colored paper and underneath a also begin to accept significant plexiglass plate, anti-riot police funding from donors who do not protectors fixed on the wall— align with the interests of artists visualizes it. Founded in 1931 by
18 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Private View – Big Safari (details), 2021
20 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Private View – Big Safari (details), 2021
22 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions 23 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions
PRIVATE VIEW – SPECIAL GIFT, 2019 PRIVATE VIEW – SILENT WEAPON, 2018
2 prints, framed, each 40 x 60 cm; 1 print, framed, 40 x 57 cm; 2 prints, framed, each 40 x 60 cm; 4 prints, acrylic glass, each 30 x 40 cm;
4 prints, acrylic glass, each 30 x 40 cm; found images, framed, found images, framed, each 21 x 29 cm; book page, plastic submarine, straws
each 21 x 29 cm; wall clock, angle meter, 2 coins
Private View – Silent Weapon military expos. Quotes from
Private View – Special Gift households while simultane- (2018) recounts and juxtaposes Francesca Habsburg about
(2019) focuses on Karl Diehl and ously investing in new military the rise of contemporary art the newly established Ocean
the Diehl Foundation. The weap- technology, especially ammu- foundation and art collection Space in Venice, as well as the
ons producer was a collector of nition and aircraft defense. Be- TBA21 (Thyssen-Bornemisza foundation’s engagement in
Albrecht Dürer’s etchings. After cause they delivered weapons Art Contemporary) with the climate issues, are also part
Diehl’s death, his collection, directly to the German state, simultaneous production of of the installation, along with
worth several million, was given the Diehl Foundation has been submarines by the German two found images from a home
to the city of Nuremberg as a in close contact with politicians company ThyssenKrupp interior magazine, in which
present. The history of the com- such as Franz Josef Strauss. Marine Systems. The foun- Habsburg presents works from
pany, especially its involvement The installation also consists of dation emerged in 2002 and her art collection. Crucially, the
in World War II as a German quotes from a report about the is a financial side project of a installation includes the first
Nazi weapons manufacturer, is company’s tax fraud in which holding owned by Francesca page of Elfriede Jelinek’s play
juxtaposed with the history of the Bavarian state was involved. Habsburg (born Thyssen-Borne- Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel)
the original art gifts given to the Artifacts such as a commem- misza), who inherited the [Rechnitz (The Exterminating
collections in Nuremberg. The oration coin of Karl Diehl, a fortune built up by the Thyssen Angel)]. The play is based on
Diehl Foundation was founded Diehl wall clock, and a found family through Thyssen AG, the the massacre of Jewish forced
in 1902 and has remained a image of a calculating machine parent company of Thyssen- laborers in the Rechnitz Castle,
patriarchal family business until are placed next to a copy of Krupp Marine Systems. Full in which Margit von Batthyány
today. The company started to Albrecht Dürer’s Draughtsman financial transparency about (born Thyssen-Bornemisza), the
produce watches and calcu- Making a Perspective Drawing the holding or the foundation aunt of Francesca Habsburg,
lating machines in the postwar of a Reclining Woman. is not available to the general took part.
period, thus infiltrating private public, but traces of the opaque
financial channels between
TBA21 and ThyssenKrupp
suggest a deep entanglement
of war, wealth, and contempo-
rary art. Private View – Silent
Weapon decodes the signs of
this entanglement: the foun-
dation’s institutional collab-
orations are confronted with
business data about the Type
214 Submarine, built by Thys-
senKrupp and sold to Turkey,
Greece, Portugal, and South
Korea. Advertising slogans
promoting the undetectability
of the submarine accompany a
list of exhibitions organized by
ThyssenKrupp at international24 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions 25 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions
NON-ALIGNED RELATIVES, 2016–2021 NON-ALIGNED RELATIVES, 2021
Work series Video installation, color and sound, 16:9
“Non-aligned” refers simultaneously to the political Non-Aligned Non-aligned Relatives is a new and poems that she* meticu-
Movement and to a political and cultural refusal to align to norma- version of a performance by the lously chants, she* pays extreme
tive models and behaviors. Founded in 1961 at the Belgrade Confer- artist*, shot in the actual exhi- attention to the materiality and
ence in the spirit and continuity of the Bandung Conference of 1955, bition space during setup, with the physicality of the processes
the Non-Aligned Movement brought together countries that did not the same props but in a slightly of remembering, of assembling,
wish to partake in the East-West confrontation but, on the contrary, different setting. Appropriating and of collecting. It is through
wanted to promote the effective independence of countries in the stories, reenacting scenes, re- materiality and embodiment that
Global South within the framework of decolonization. Twenty-five producing images, and reconfig- she* reassembles memories of
countries from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East participated in the uring objects from collective and the family and that she* estab-
movement’s creation, along with Yugoslavia. As of 2016, there are personal memories, the artist* lishes connections between her*
120 member countries, and while the group’s political influence performs sequences where she* imagined relatives and historical
declined after the end of the Cold War, it continues to play an im- embodies the personae of her* artists across space and time.
portant role by, for example, rejecting the standard measures for re- queer family album, her* chosen In doing so, she* creates a lively
solving public debt advocated by the Washington Consensus. New non-aligned relatives, and acti- archive of queer familiarity, a
movements that have emerged in the wake of the anti-globalization vates her* collection of chosen collection beyond heteronorma-
movement are taking inspiration from the Non-Aligned Movement’s avant-garde artists. Through tivity and linearity, asking, finally,
principles and the struggles it embodies, as they continue to advo- her* manipulation of symbolic what constitutes a familial as-
cate for a form of globalization that pays greater consideration to objects and through the songs semblage beyond reproduction.
the interests of Global South countries.
In the series Non-aligned Relatives Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* ques-
tions the legacy of cultural politics of non-aligned countries, how-
ever not in a historical manner but rather to extend the notion of
non-alignment to the politics of collections and collecting as a prac-
tice. What kind of artistic practice can arise from non-alignment if
non-alignment is understood as a questioning of property relations,
ownership, and inheritance? What kind of kinship formations arise
out of non-alignment if non-alignment also means disentangling
the heteronormative family from its constitutive rights to private
property?
Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*, Non-aligned Relatives (performance
documentation), 2019, exhibition Queer Stories, curated by Christiane
Erharter, tranzit.sk, Bratislava, 2018. Photo: Judith Stehlik26 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions 27 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions
SIMULTANEOUS CONTRAST, 2018 THE QUEER FAMILY ALBUM
Various textiles, 160 x 220 cm – NON-ALIGNED RELATIVES, 2018
C-print and silver gelatin prints in 2 boxes, each 29.7 x 21 cm
Simultaneous Contrast is a “simultaneity”, understanding
fragile textile patchwork piece colors as having independent Two black rectangular frames during a drive from Geneva to
sewn by hand by the artist* lives acquired when liberated lined with black mats. Arranged Kabul in 1939. On the far-left
herself* from recuperated from subject matter or com- in the middle, three pictures in side of the diptych is a portrait
garment linings (made out of bined with other colors and each frame. This is the formal of the artist*’s grandmother, in
silk, velvet, or chiffon) and hung inventing spaces where form, structure of The Queer Fam- her house in Southern Ser-
on the wall. The textiles, orig- color, and rhythm communicate. ily Album (2018), an ongoing bia, which she built herself in
inally sewn inside clothes to Sonia Delaunay explored the photographic series that brings the 1960s. Born in 1927, she
soften their touch or to struc- possibilities of simultaneous together portraits from various survived World War II and the
ture their shape, are delicately contrast in a range of media, contexts and puts them in a wars in the 1990s, experiencing
brought together as a blanket from painting, to costumes and queer and deliberately chosen various political systems, from
that presents itself as a painting, fashion design, to bookbinding, familial relation. The work em- a monarchy to socialism, as well
merging abstraction and applied domestic objects, and posters, phasizes kinship over genealogy, as the governments of the first
arts. The pattern, the colors, creating a work that was simul- multipolar families over a het- and second Yugoslavia. Mixing
and the title evoke the work of taneously aesthetically engag- erosexual-couple nucleus, and familial lineage and chosen
Ukranian French painter and ing and philosophically utopian. self-determination over filiation. kinship, merging individual
fashion designer Sonia Delaunay Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* pays The Queer Family Album – psyches and collective mem-
(1885–1979), a representative tribute to this major female art- Non-aligned Relatives roots ories, and interlinking inher-
of geometric abstraction and ist and at the same time interro- Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*’s ited structures and tactics of
a key figure of the European gates the place of women artists practice in a queer and politi- flight, Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*
avant-garde. Her approach in the dominant narratives of cally engaged artistic tradition, makes inquiries into her* own
was based on the notion of the Western avant-garde. one critical of all hegemonic self, as both a product of, and
models forged by the West and a person in constant resistance
expanded throughout the world, to, heteropatriarchal regimes.
whether they be social, cultural, Additionally, conceiving of all
or economic. the pictured people as her*
“non-aligned relatives” is a way
The first image one might to reactivate cultural proximi-
identify is the iconic portrait of ties and historical attachments
the Afghan refugee girl, Sharbat that were born as part of a
Gula, who made the cover of utopian vision for an alternative
National Geographic in 1985, geopolitical scenario for the
and then the cover of Deborah world (albeit one that failed in
Ellis’s best-seller book, The the face of the hegemonic force
Breadwinner (2000). The other of international capitalism) and
images are portraits of people to refuse the mystification of a
performing diverse forms of Western-conceived, monolithic
gender identity: a bacha posh (a Europe.
young Afghan woman who lives
as a boy, mainly to escape pa-
triarchal oppression) and Swiss
Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*, Non-aligned Relatives (performance writer Annemarie Schwarzen-
documentation), 2019, exhibition Queer Stories. Photo: Judith Stehlik bach, who passed as a man28 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* The Queer Family Album – Non-aligned Relatives, 2018
30 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions 31 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions DISAVOWALS OR CANCELLED CONFESSIONS, 2016 5 frames with silver gelatin prints on Baryta paper, each 60 x 40 cm Disavowals or Cancelled Con- members of the artist*’s chosen fessions (original title Aveux family who inspired non avenus, 1930) is the English her* personally and politically translation of a book by artist, —Claude Cahun’s continuous poet, performer, photographer, radical leftist political com- and resistance fighter Claude mitment, which ended in her Cahun (1894–1954, born Lucy imprisonment in 1944, always Schwob). The book is an anti- had an explicitly feminist realist autobiography, a sort queer subtext—Ana Hoffner of antimémoire consisting of ex-Prvulovic*’s Disavowals or a collection of poems, apho- Cancelled Confessions (2016) ristic philosophical fragments, also brings up another layer, and recollected dreams. It through the omnipresent figure is illustrated with Surrealist of the double: duality and am- photomontages—self-por- bivalence. In the genius force traits, bodily displacements deployed to resist any aesthetic, and rearrangements, object social, or moral assignations, assemblages—made by Claude Claude Cahun—for whom the Cahun (often together with her figure of the double, through lifelong partner and collaborator the mirror, the splitting of the Marcel Moore, born Suzanne body, and the repetition in time Malherbe). In the pictures, as in were crucial—forgot her own the texts, Claude Cahun tackles double, Marcel Moore. Never common representations of having been credited as co-au- identity, gender, and subjectiv- thor, even though Claude Cahun ity and presents the self as an and Marcel Moore both created accumulation of selves or as a major parts of Claude Cahun’s shifting set of social relations Surrealist self-portraits, Marcel to be played with. “Shuffle the Moore remained unremem- cards. Masculine? Feminine? bered, Claude Cahun’s forgotten It depends on the situation. double. Neuter is the only gender that suits me.” The five items of Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*’s series, bearing the same title as Claude Cahun’s book, recreate with two models some of the most famous photographic portraits of/by Claude Cahun, where gen- der appears as contingent and mutable and where playfulness, irony, and camp merge. An hom- Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*, Disavowals or Cancelled Confessions (details), age to Claude Cahun, one of the 2016, photo: WEST. Fotostudio
32 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Floor plan
Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*
ENTRANCE
ENTRANCE
Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński
Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński (Further information on these works: see exhibition guide “Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński”) Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*
1 In Search of Red, Black, 7 In Remembrance to the Outside the exhibition space: 1 After the Transformation, 7 Private View – Big Safari, 12 Speech Objects #1, #2,
and Green, 2021 Man Who Became Known 2013, pp. 6–7 2021, pp. 17–21 #3, and #4, 2018–2021,
as Angelo Soliman, Ashantee, edited, pp. 34–35
2 To let them know what (Ante Mortem) I & 2017–2021 2 Future Anterior – 8 Private View – Special
we think about them, (Post Mortem) II, 2015 (Kunsthalle Wien Shop) Illustrations of War, 2013, Gift, 2019, p. 22 13 Духовна
2021 pp. 8–9 Деколонизација
8 You are awaited, but Yaarborley Domeïs Brief, 2021 9 Private View – Silent (Spiritual Decolonization)
3 Schebestas Schatten, never as equals, 2021 (in the newspaper Der 3 Fifty-One Pieces Weapon, 2018, p. 23 – Part I, 2021, p. 36
2017/2021 Standard) – Believing in Art, 2016,
9 Ashantee, edited & p. 10 10 Non-aligned Relatives, 14 The Bacha Posh Project,
4 Fleshbacks, 2021 annotated, 2021 2021, p. 25 2016/2021, pp. 37–43
4 Freud Film, 2017/2021,
5 The Letter, 2019 10 Strike a Pose, 2017–2021 pp. 12–13 11 (from left to right) 15 Active Intolerance
& In Remembrance to Simultaneous Contrast, – Part II, 2021, pp. 44–47
6 In Remembrance to Ella Williams, 2021 5 Private View 2018, p. 26
the Man Who Became – Blue Blood, 2021, The Queer Family Album, Outside the exhibition space:
Etched into History as 11 Unearthing. In p. 15 2018, pp. 27–29
“Der Aschanti an der Conversation, 2017 Disavowals or Cancelled Active Intolerance – Part I,
Akademie”, 2021 6 Private View Confessions, 2016, 2021, pp. 44–45
– Modern Members, pp. 30–31 (Museumsquartier,
2021, p. 16 Double Still Lives, 2016, entrance Halle E+G)
pp. 34–3534 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions 35 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions DOUBLE STILL LIVES, 2016 3 frames with silver gelatin prints on Baryta paper, each 50 x 40 cm SPEECH OBJECT #1, 2018 Feathers, pen nibs, branches, dimensions variable SPEECH OBJECT #2, 2018 Bell jars, reception bells, dimensions variable SPEECH OBJECT #3, 2018 Magnifying lens, convex mirror, wire, dimensions variable SPEECH OBJECT #4, 2021 2 urinals, dimensions variable In Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*’s artists like Elsa von Freytag- work, the double is omnipresent. Loringhoven, who made the first A crucial figure in the psychoan- readymade, which was wrongly alytical and artistic exploration assigned to Marcel Duchamp. of the unconscious in avant- Speech Object #2 is composed garde movements like Surreal- of six bell jars covering six silver ism and Dada, the double ques- reception bells and plays with Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*, Double Still Lives (detail), 2016, tions not only the split between homonymies. So does Speech photo: WEST. Fotostudio. conscious and unconscious but Object #1, with its pen nibs also the relationship between attached to branches anchored being and speech, between or planted in little feather hills. being and thought, between But the wordplay works only projection and recognition— in German (Daunenfedern and and also between creation and Schreibfedern). Speech Object recreation. And so, in the three #3, made of two convex ob- frames of Double Still Lives jects—one round mirror and one (2016), as well as in the four magnifying lens—questions the Speech Objects (2018/2021), relationship between reflection the double is the central figure and absorption. Speech Objects on a compositional and sym- decline some figures or avatars bolic level. The black-and-white of the double (complementary Double Still Lives series sub- double, dialectical double, bipo- tly evokes the aesthetics of lar double . . .) to fuel questions avant-garde object photogra- about alterity and identity, phy and plays with repetition, language and performativity. variation, indexation, and scale. Finally, Speech Object #4 con- The Speech Objects function sists of two pissoirs. on similar binary composition. They subtly quote, again, some assemblages by Claude Cahun Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*, Speech Object #2 (installation view), 2018, but also by other avant-garde photo: WEST. Fotostudio
36 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions 37 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions
ДУХОВНА ДЕКОЛОНИЗАЦИЈА THE BACHA POSH PROJECT, 2016/2021
(SPIRITUAL DECOLONIZATION) – PART I, 2021 12 prints on archival boxes, each 20.4 x 25.4 x 3 cm; 2 canvases,
5 drawings, 2 hanging sculptures, metallic display, dimensions variable each 100 x 180 cm, with green-screen fabric; 2 translucent glass plates with
photographs, each 60 x 40 cm; glass plates; dimensions variable
Духовна Деколонизација found archival material depict-
(Spiritual Decolonization) – ing the works and made copies “Bacha posh” is the English
Part I (2021) is an homage to in her* studio, without trying to transliteration of a Dari term
the few women from Yugoslavia reproduce, exactly, the original referring to a cultural practice
who took part in the non-aligned technique, style, or format but in Afghanistan and parts of
exhibitions and, at the same rather putting herself* in the Pakistan whereby some fami
time, a more general reflection situation of exercising or of lies that have no sons pick a
on the position of women artists learning from another tradition daughter to live and behave as
in utopian artistic or political than the one she* had been a boy—thus enabling the child
movements of the twentieth learning in and from in her* own to attend school, to walk alone
century. In the non-aligned art education. In doing so, she* in public, and to generally live
movement, culture and art questions the dominant West- more freely. The custom has
played a great role, as the ac- ern art system (including the been documented for at least a
knowledgment of cultural equal- art education system) and its century, but is likely much older
ity, the struggle against cultural ignorance toward histories and than that and is still practiced
imperialism, and the claim of a practices that decenter or even today. The Bacha Posh Project
cultural heritage different from bypass Western-centric art his- (2016/2021) arises out of Ana
the classic Western modernity tory. Also, she* pays homage to Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*’s inves-
were strong principles from the women artists, who, in art histo- tigation into different forms of
beginning. Still, the invisibility ries, have been marginalized or queerness, in different times, in
of women artists in the archive considered unimportant within different spaces, and with dif-
shows how gender equality was the contemporary art world. ferent social functions attached
still looked down on, albeit the The hanging sculptures, made to them. With this work—an-
importance of women in the of wire and wool thread, at once chored in a space between
independence struggles was delicate and fuzzy, are produced history and the present, fiction
encouraged by the non-aligned from recuperated material—in- and investigation—the artist*
movement. dustrially produced, but linked proposes a rethinking of the
to domestic work, to reparation, present-day status of queerness
Only seven women from or to maintenance, like wire or from the perspective of social
Yugoslavia took part in the rubber rings. Approximately re survival, expanded potential,
exhibitions of the non-aligned enacting modernist shapes and and cultural proximities beyond
organized during the whole cultivating a DIY trashy aspect, geopolitical separations.
period of activity of the move- they float between assignations
ment. The drawings of Духовна and genres. The following “Bacha Texts” are
Деколонизација (Spiritual experiments of such writings of
Decolonization) – Part I are history and fiction, written by
made after the works of three the artist* herself*.
of them: Ankica Oprešnik
(1919–2005), Zdenka Golob
(1928–2019), and Tinca Steg-
ovec (1927–2019). The artist*44 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions 45 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Artwork descriptions
ACTIVE INTOLERANCE, 2021 with superimpositions, trans- construction sites, among other
Two-part installation parencies, and reflections, illegal entanglements.
and the intense printed colors, Active Intolerance – Part I is
PART I
prevent the series from falling displayed outside the exhibi-
9 brass plates, each 90 x 60 cm, dimensions variable (outside exhibition
space, located in Museumsquartier at the entrance to Hall E+G) into pure nostalgia. Once a tion space, at the entrance to
dynamic socialist city with its Halle E+G in Museumsquartier.
PART II four factories (for glass, textile, The installation deals more
6 A0 posters, each 118.2 x 168 cm ; 10 Fine Art prints on Hahnemühle paper; sugar, and cement produc- specifically with the local
video, color, 16:9, 11 min 50 sec tion) and its social and cultural situation of prison workers in
institutions, Paraćin now has Austria. Many everyday prod-
In Active Intolerance (2021), practice, military service, etc.” only one remaining factory. The ucts are made by inmates, who
Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*’s re- Established in 1970 by philoso- surviving factory, the cement receive low wages and have
search tackles diverse forms of pher Michel Foucault in collab- one, cooperates with Stra- no possibility to organize in
exploitation of (cheap) labor in oration with writer Jean-Marie bag—an Austrian construction trade unions. As such, they
enclosed environments, namely Domenach and historian Pierre company massively investing in remain unbearably invisible. Ana
the factory and the prison, and Vidal-Naquet (and later on Southeast Europe and exploit- Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* tackles
uncovers the regime of invisibil- joined by fellow intellectuals ing its local labor force through this invisibility by disclosing the
ity that workers and prisoners Gilles Deleuze, Jean Genet, and prison labor. This is the link to full list of Austrian companies
are subjected to. This issue is Jean-Paul Sartre), the Prisons the last part of the work, a video using prison labor, as revealed
related to the artist*’s overall in- Information Group aimed to without sound, which merges in a 2018 document published
vestigation of the Western cap- disseminate information about two types of imagery. One layer by the Ministry of Justice.
italist and imperialist political the conditions of French pris- shows contemporary corporate Just months later, the list was
project and its relentless con- ons in order to trigger a public sequences by Strabag, from withdrawn from the ministry’s
struction of, on the one hand, response against the intolerable general communications to a website. An outdoor installation
working, consuming, complying, conditions in which prisoners specific advertisement for one consisting of nine printed brass
and reproducing bodies and, were forced to live (and work) of its development/gentrifica- plates placed at the entrance to
on the other, of “Others”, both and, ultimately, calling for tion projects, Belgrade Water- Kunsthalle Wien, the work can
without and within (national) change. The group undertook front. This imagery is interlaced be seen as an (anti-)monument,
societies, who are to be exploit- intensive field research by inter- with muted video clips of EKV in negative, reminding viewers
ed and “brought into line”. viewing prisoners, their wives, (for Ekatarina Velika, Catherine of the silenced and extensive
and prisons guards, and they the Great), a famous alternative use of prison labor.
The second part of the work, then distributed the information punk rock band from Belgrade.
Active Intolerance – Part II, is they had gathered via samizdat By interweaving these images,
made up of three components. pamphlets. the artist* shows the discrepan-
A series of six posters feature, in cy between the socialist model
blue text on a red background, Alongside the six posters, a of self-organized (art) produc-
sentences selected from the photographic series by Ana tion and neoliberal, imperialist
manifesto of the Prisons Infor- Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* docu- forms of production. Finally, a
mation Group, such as: “Let ments the abandoned state line of text that runs at the bot-
what is intolerable—imposed, as of factories and institutions tom of the screen throughout
it is, by force and by silence— in her* hometown of Paraćin, the video features a translated
cease to be accepted” and “Let Serbia. The overexposed edges and slightly shortened version
us become people intolerant of appearing on some pictures of an investigative article on
prisons, the legal system, the and characteristic of analog the illegal and inhumane use
hospital system, psychiatric technique, as well as the play of prison workers on highway46 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Active Intolerance – Part II (details), 2021
48 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Interview 49 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Interview
Ana Hoffner
ex-Prvulovic*
in Conversation
with Anne
Faucheret
TRANSFORMATION AND INTERRUPTION
Your exhibition opens on a black-cube space with three artworks
on display. They provide insight into the topics that span the rest
of the show. After the Transformation (2013) is a video in which Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*, After the Transformation (video still), 2013
you investigate, in a voice-training session, the potentiality of
voice beyond binary assignations. Besides, you interlace this
personal (albeit fragmentary) narrative with the historical pro- queer people, who are constantly accused of erasing history
cess of transition in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Future Anterior and not acting according to the assigned logic of gender. The
– Illustrations of War (2013) is about the continuity of gendered claim on history without direct referentiality—in fact, with-
violence, represented or performed, in times of war and peace. out a recognized bodily experience—made me think further
Fifty-One Pieces – Believing in Art (2016) is a minimalist mon- about how queerness can indeed be a tool to have a different
ument in remembrance of the disappearance of 51 artworks take on history and memory. I got interested in concepts that
from the National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the claim memory without direct experience, memories that are
Yugoslav Wars, and hence a statement against cultural amnesia transferred otherwise or even created otherwise. Through
but also a call for institutional responsibility toward history. How Future Anterior – Illustrations of War, I then explored how a
do you articulate these three stances, and how are they made specific temporality (the “future anterior” tense) can help to
graspable through other artworks in the show? shift notions of true and false history. And Fifty-One Pieces
was made when I started extending, or one could even say
After the Transformation was the first work I did in 2013, applying, the queerness of memory to institutions that seem
when I started to explore queerness as a signifier of memo- to preserve, but in fact govern, memory. This work is a lot
ry. Since I was taking testosterone for about a year, I have a about the politics of collections and collecting as a practice,
deeper, more masculine voice, which gives the impression to which then returns in other works in the exhibition.
some that I grew up as a boy. The voice refers to a past that,
from the perspective of gender development norms, I haven’t
necessarily experienced in that way. But this reference is also TRAUMA—AS REARTICULATION OF SUPPRESSED
not simply wrong. It is more about the fact that I can claim a NARRATIVES
history of masculinity that, in the eyes of heteronormativity, In your work, you reconsider the way in which history is written,
does not get any recognition. This is a typical problem for alongside the fragmented narratives of traumatic experiences.50 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Interview 51 Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* Interview
What does a traumatic experience narrate beyond the so important to trigger fantasy and fiction to reinvent memory
post-trauma pathology, beyond the individual psyche? Can you culture (Erinnerungskultur)?
elaborate on how you thematize in your work the productive
effect of trauma in questioning the normalized and naturalized There are two series in the exhibition that are highly connect-
histories of a society? ed and difficult to show, which highlights the problem you
describe: Non-aligned Relatives (2016–2021) and The Bacha
Trauma as a popular discourse is incredibly boring. Every- Posh Project (2016/2021). For The Bacha Posh Project, I was
body speaks of it, everybody is sooner or later traumatized trying to create a fictional persona; I named her Aziza Mehran
by something, and then takes this as a legitimizing ground Ahmad and decided that she was a Surrealist artist from Af-
to claim anything whatsoever. What is indeed interesting is ghanistan, with a migration history to Europe, and a gender-
the historical development of trauma. The concept of “trau- queer. Only because of Aziza’s existence was I able to recre-
ma” emerged in Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer’s work on ate a collection of works by Claude Cahun, Sonia Delaunay,
hysteria as a result of the influence of Jean-Martin Charcot and Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, which I then attributed
and his research on neuropathology at the Salpêtrière to Aziza. Creating this collection was a way to create kinship
clinic in Paris. Freud and Breuer regarded the symptoms of where I myself wished to have found it. The collection speaks
hysteria to be a result of traumata. One can say that much more about my longing for a past of politically engaged queer
of Freud’s later work was influenced by his thinking about figures to whom I could belong than of existent relations.
trauma in terms of gender division. While female hysteria Since I don’t have such a history, I had to find ways to fabri-
was understood as being about repressed fantasies, male cate it. The Bacha Posh Project is an exploration of framing
war neurosis was considered to be about repressed mem- and naming, and that’s why it consists almost only of display
ories. There is a crucial gap between fantasy and memory elements, whereas Non-aligned Relatives hovers in the space
that was always gendered, and this gap is what I am trying between physical work (photographs, sculptures, etc.) and
to grasp through the notion of queerness. It is about reat- its representational navigation through a performance video.
taching “trauma” to a bodily experience (that of queer peo- But, in fact, these two belong together.
ple but not exclusively), but in fact also about changing the
understanding of experience itself. It is to me a consequent
Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic*, Non-aligned Relatives (performance
next step in articulating trauma through a disentanglement documentation), 2019, exhibition Queer Stories. Photo: Judith Stehlik
of origin and effect, and the crucial category of belatedness.
HISTORY AND POST-MEMORY
With the term “post-memory”, literary scholar Marianne
Hirsch describes the relationship that the “generations
after” have to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma
of those who came before, whereby they bear experiences
they “remember” only by means of the stories, images, and
behaviors among which they grew up. But these experiences
are transmitted to them so deeply and affectively as to seem
to constitute memories in their own right. Post-memory’s
connection to the past is thus actually mediated not by recall
but by imaginative investment, projection, and creation. In
your work, you decidedly interlace memory and fantasy, in
order to open up a space for forgotten historical connections,
unseen cultural links, and also to decode amnesia and the
repressed. Can you give us some examples and tell us why it isYou can also read
