For KISS, Margot Pilz restages her Hausfrauendenkmal (Monument to Housewives) from 1979, originally presented as a sculpture-action in Graz. The work makes the domestic public, the personal political, and the invisible obvious. Made of several layers of white linen bedclothes that are overlapped, patched together, and fixed around a wooden pole, which is partly held up by a string tied to a tree, the installation looks like a giant fabric cloak enveloping … a void. The used bedsheets represent the entirety of life, from reproduction and care activities to rituals that all humans perform (birth, love, sleep, death). At the same time, they symbolize the reality faced by housewives, the gendered division of labor, and the misrecognition of domestic work.
Location: Karlsplatz / Resselpark
Hours: 11 am – 9 pm
Program
30/7, 6 pm
Unveiling of the Hausfrauendenkmal through Margot Pilz followed by ten statements from invited speakers
Sabine Alena, Lena Freimüller, Elke Krystufek, Katharina Mader, Gabriele Schor, Nina Schedlmayer, Petra Unger, and Dorothea Zeyringer & Tiina Sööt will deliver comments on the artwork and its feminist dimension as well as around domestic work and the struggle for its recognition. (in German)
31/7, 5 – 7 pm
Bussi Baba: Send a Message to the World
The Hausfrauendenkmal is a sculpture made of patched up linen and tablecloths. Inspired by the material that artist Margot Pilz used for her work, we will try out different textile printing techniques on t-shirts and dishtowels.
Kids’ workshop. Registration via vermittlung@kunsthallewien.at
1/8, 7 pm
Collective dismantling of the Hausfrauendenkmal & procession
The reactivation of the monument concludes with the collective dismantling of the installation, followed by a procession carrying its parts to a waste container, hence performing the monument’s – still utopian – obsolescence. Get your personal signed collector’s item from the fabrics directly from Margot Pilz on site.
With a musical intervention by artist & musician Hicran Ergen.