Carola Dertnig: “Space is not given, space is taken up”

Carola Dertnig: “Space is not given, space is taken up”

Carola Dertnig has been teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna since 2006.
Image: Michael Maritsch

Image: Michael Maritsch
A work inspired by the Feldenkrais method
Image: Michael Maritsch

She completed her dance and gymnastics training at the Linz Bruckner Conservatory (today the Bruckner University): The Offenes Kulturhaus is dedicating the comprehensive exhibition “Dancing Through” to the performance artist Carola Dertnig (60), who was born in Innsbruck and lives in Vienna after spending time in New York Life”, curated by Michaela Seiser.

Red and pink extra-long stockings hanging from the meter-high ceiling greet visitors on the first floor. In the middle: a swing. A playful introduction to this tour that gets your own thoughts going.


Image: Michael Maritsch

Inspired by Feldenkrais

A centerpiece of the show, which includes works previously created especially for Linz, is a work inspired by Moshé Feldenkrais: Dertnig has, to a certain extent, materialized his flowing movement method in spirally curved tubes. An eye-catcher that exudes aesthetic lightness.

A work inspired by the Feldenkrais method
Image: Michael Maritsch

In the same room, filmic portraits of three young women – among them the artist’s daughter – invite you to trace the process of growing up: “Space is not given, space is taken up,” it says at one point in the (English-language) short films. Which could also represent the entire work of Carola Dertnig, who has headed the Performative Art Department at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna since 2006. It was not easy for female performers – especially in the 1960s and 70s – to take up their space in a male-dominated environment. Carola Dertnig calls a fictitious Viennese actionist “Lora Sana,” who lets her reflect on her role as a performance extra in the background.

“I like the casualness,” says Dertnig, with which her work is created in everyday life and in public spaces. It’s worth lingering over the slapstick videos in the staircase to the first floor: her attempts as a mother to maneuver the stroller through narrow entrance barriers like the subway fail in a memorably tragicomic manner. Until helping hands lift the car into the air.

Info: Linz, OK 1st place, can be seen until
May 26, Tue–Sun, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., information: 0732 / 77 20 52 502, www.ooekultur.at

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