RENATE BERTLMANN: TENDER TOUCHES

1 - 31 May 2019

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Renate BERTLMANN, Ekstase II [Ecstasy II], 1977/2013
"MY WORKS ARE AN EXPRESSION OF FEAR COMBINED WITH GREAT LUST, AND THE LATTER IS FRIGHTENING FOR THOSE WHO DON’T DARE TO CONFRONT THEIR OWN HIDDEN DESIRES..." – RENATE BERTLMANN
The principle of pleasure oozes from every pore of Renate BERTLMANN's work. Since the 1970s, the radical Austrian artist has incorporated gendered object trouves in her multi-faceted practice, creating sculpture, performance and photography that use fetish objects typically associated with male sexual fantasies – dildos, condoms, sex dolls – as the basis of her work.
The online exhibition ‘Tender Touches’ focuses on the radical Austrian artist’s Tender Object series. The photographs Zärtliche Berührungen [Tender Touches] (1976) show latex teats, made by stretching and inflating condoms, erotically caressing one another. The use of condoms signals an association with sexual pleasure but also sexual repression: the prevention of direct skin-on-skin contact and the protection against too much intimacy.

The works on view here – several made available to the public for the first time – feature her unique colour combinations (pink for Renate relates to pornography in her triad of categories that she groups under the larger title AMO ERGO SUM [I love, therefore I am] together with irony and utopia).
The Tender Christ series confronts and conflates two taboos: sexuality and religion. Bertlmann studied conservation and restoration at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, eventually teaching there herself. When a crucifix came in to be restored, the artist secretly added a crown of latex pacifiers and surreptitiously photographed the piece.

The work relates to a larger photographic work, a crucifix with a latex body made to match the height of the artist, made for Renate’s upcoming exhibition at the State Gallery of Lower Austria in Krems (opening May 25, 2019). Both challenge the Church’s rejection of sexual liberation and the female form.
'Tender Touches' also debuts a new sculpture created to coincide with Bertlmann's exhibition at the Venice Biennale: 'Discordo Ergo Sum [I dissent, therefore I am]', curated by Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein. The presentation brings together decades of the artist's radial and risk-taking practice, along with several new pieces created especially for the Biennale, including an installation of 312 glass roses, each hand blown in Murano, out of which protrude razor sharp blades. A small extension of the work is shown here as part of the online show.
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