Kunsthalle Wien

Opening: 27 February 2025, 7 pm

Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960–1991 examines the pioneering role of women in digital art. Comprising more than one hundred works by fifty artists, the exhibition includes painting, sculpture, installation, film, performance and many computer-generated drawings and texts. Focusing on women who were among the first to use the computer – mainframe and minicomputers – as a tool for art making. They are accompanied by other artists who made the computer their subject or worked in a computational way with algorithmic or mathematically based systems. The exhibition begins with works made in academic or industrial computer labs and ends with others made on the first personal computers in the last years before the World Wide Web made the internet publicly accessible. Set within a period that was also marked by the second wave of feminism, it documents a lesser-known history of the inception of digital art, countering conventional narratives on art and technology by focusing entirely on female figures.

Texts about the artists and their works can be found here.

It will be accompanied by a new publication including 27 artist interviews. A symposium with artists from the exhibition and experts in the field of art and technology was hosted at TU Wien on Friday, 28 February. Here you can watch it online.

The exhibition Radical Software: Women, Art and Computing 1960-1991 is curated by Michelle Cotton and organized by Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, and Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean.

Artists:

Rebecca Allen (b. 1953, Detroit), Elena Asins (b. 1940, Madrid – d. 2015, Navarra), Colette Stuebe Bangert (b. 1934, Columbus, Ohio) & Charles Jeffries Bangert (b. 1938, Fargo, North Dakota – d. 2019, Lawrence, Kansas), Gretchen Bender (b. 1951, Seaford, Delaware – d. 2004, New York), Gudrun Bielz (b. 1954, Linz) & Ruth Schnell (b. 1956, Feldkirch), Dara Birnbaum (b. 1946, New York), Inge Borchardt (b. 1935, Szczecin, formerly Stettin), Barbara Buckner (b. 1950, Chicago), Doris Chase (b. 1923 – d. 2008, Seattle, Washington), Analívia Cordeiro (b. 1954, São Paulo), Betty Danon (b. 1927, Istanbul – d. 2002, Milan), Hanne Darboven (b. 1941, Munich – d. 2009, Hamburg), Bia Davou (b. 1932 – d. 1996, Athens), Agnes Denes (b. 1938, Budapest), VALIE EXPORT (b. 1940, Linz), Anna Bella Geiger (1933, Rio de Janeiro), Isa Genzken (b. 1948, Bad Oldesloe), Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (b. 1965, Strasbourg), Lily Greenham (b. 1924, Vienna – d. 2001, London), Samia Halaby (b. 1936, Jerusalem), Barbara Hammer (b. 1939, Los Angeles – d. 2019, New York), Lynn Hershman Leeson (b. 1941, Cleveland, Ohio), Grace C. Hertlein (b. 1924, Chicago – d. 2015, Chico, California), Channa Horwitz (b. 1932 – d. 2013, Los Angeles), Irma Hünerfauth (b. 1907, Donaueschingen– d. 1998, Kreuth), Charlotte Johannesson (b. 1943, Malmö), Alison Knowles (b. 1933, New York), Beryl Korot (b. 1945, New York), Katalin Ladik (b. 1942, Novi Sad), Ruth Leavitt (b. 1944, St. Paul, Minnesota – d. 2025, Baltimore, Maryland), Liliane Lijn (b. 1939, New York), Vera Molnár (b. 1924, Budapest – d. 2023, Paris), Monique Nahas (b. 1940, Paris) & Hervé Huitric (b. 1945, Paris), Katherine Nash (b. 1910 – d. 1982, Minneapolis), Sonya Rapoport (b. 1923, Brookline – d. 2015, Berkeley), Deborah Remington (b. 1930, Haddonfield, New Jersey – d. 2010, Moorestown, New Jersey), Sylvia Roubaud (b. 1941, Munich), Miriam Schapiro (b. 1923, Toronto – d. 2015, Hampton Bays, New York), Lillian Schwartz (b. 1927, Cincinnati, Ohio – d. 2024, Manhattan, New York), Sonia Sheridan (b. 1925, Newark, Ohio – d. 2021, Hanover, Main), Nina Sobell (b. 1947, Patchogue, New York), Barbara T. Smith (b. 1931, Pasadena, California), Tamiko Thiel (b. 1957, Oakland, California), Rosemarie Trockel (b. 1952, Schwerte), Joan Truckenbrod (b. 1945, Greensboro, North Carolina), Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (b. 1951, Antwerp), Ulla Wiggen (b. 1942, Stockholm)

The exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien is made possible through the generous support of Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne.