Beauty Contest

17 February - 26 May 2012

The cooperation project “BEAUTY CONTEST” presents artists exploring what is probably one of the most trivial everyday experiences: our daily encounter with human beauty and its social construction. A perennial subject going back to ancient Greek philosophers’ writings, the creation of beauty has been always been linked to power and gender, to distinction and competition, to rejection and desire, and to linearity and diversity.

Visual arts, fashion and media have strongly contributed to the transformation of the notion of beauty over the last few generations. Widely perceived to be an extension of femininity until the late 20thcentury, feminism and the gay, lesbian and queer movements have eroded clear definitions of who and what is beautiful – and who and what is not. This sea change took place in an age where the notion of gender itself has been challenged and transformed.

Emancipatory artistic reflection and practice has fought to reveal the hidden structures of repression toward gender, race, and age and to shake off antiquated visual preconceptions. Yet we still seem to be caught in a vicious cycle of competition for social status, visual representation and an industrially managed and mainstreamed esthetical canon.

Participating artists: Irene ANDESSNER, Lieselott BESCHORNER, Clarina BEZZOLA, Petra BUCHEGGER, Eva Choung-Fux, Leslie DE MELO, Mehmet EMIR, Sissi FARASSAT, Gerda FASSEL, Andrea FREIBERGER, Matthias HERRMANN, Anna JERMOLAEWA, Birgit JÜRGENSSEN, Jakob Lena KNEBL, Evangelia KRANIOTI, Maria LASSNIG, Ulrike LIENBACHER, Kalup LINZY, Elfriede MEJCHAR, MUNTEAN/ROSENBLUM, Rashaad NEWSOME, Maria PETSCHNIG, Lisl PONGER, Katarina SCHMIDL, Cindy SHERMAN, Sula ZIMMERBERGER