Gender Check

Gender Check Femininity and Masculinity in Eastern European Art

MUMOK – Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna

The issue of commemoration almost inevitably produces a quandary.  Where should the focus lay?  On the event itself, historically speaking?  Or on the changes between the time we are marking and our present?

Berlin marked the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November with the fall of a wall of 8-foot dominoes and the music of Bon Jovi.  Gender Check at MUMOK in Vienna, which opened just days later, offers a different opportunity to consider the meaning of the fall of the iron curtain.  Rather than trying to jump in the Delorean with Marty McFly, curator Bojana Pejic and a team of experts from 24 different countries have assembled an exhibition of over 200 artists that examines the progression of gender and gender roles as they have been portrayed in the art of the former soviet block over the last 50 years. With over 400 works including paintings, sculpture, installations, photography, posters, films and videos, the relationship between art and history is woven together thematically as well as chronologically. From the “sexless society” of Socialist Realism and the “unofficial” art that answered its ideology with irony, to the new challenges posed by merging with the west, Gender Check is the first comprehensive exhibition of this, until recently, largely unknown chapter in art history.

Until 14.02.10 at MUMOK, Museumsplatz 1, A-1070 Vienna, a short walk from hotel Hollmann Beletage.