Renate Bertlmann. AMO ERGO SUM - A Subversive Political Progam

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The artist Renate Bertlmann (b. 1943), who lives and works in Vienna, is a preeminent representative of the ‘feminist avant-garde. The artist’s designation for her work is AMO ERGO SUM (I LOVE THEREFORE I AM). She deftly arranges clashes between antagonistic pairs: sexual pleasure and asceticism, female and male, soft and hard, attraction and repulsion. Pacifier meets knife. Ambivalent feelings between tenderness and aggression come to the fore, fueling Bertlmann’s “subversive politics.”

In an accompanying catalogue five international writers discuss Bertlmann’s trilogy of themes: “Pornography,” “Irony,” “Utopia.”