In 1973, art students Evelyn Kuwertz, Brigitte Mauch, and Antonia Wernery created a life-size environment as part of their thesis at the Berlin University of the Arts, titled “On the Situation of Women in Family and Society.” They examined media portrayals of women in the 1960s and 1970s, revealing how women were reduced to the roles of mother, housewife, and sex object—culminating in the “final product wife.”
Shortly before the exhibition opening, it was censored due to “moral concerns.” Since then, the work has not been on display again in Berlin. Galerie im Körnerpark is now exhibiting the surviving parts of the environment for the first time in fifty years, accompanied by sketches and archival materials from Kuwertz’s private collection, contextualizing the work as an important document of feminist art history in West Berlin.
The exhibition initiates a dialogue with nine contemporary artistic perspectives and, fifty years later, raises once again the question: What is the situation of women in family and society today? Right-wing movements and anti-feminism have risen worldwide, conservative gender roles are experiencing a resurgence, and the achievements of the #MeToo era are severely under pressure. The invited artists take up the topics of the “Emmas”—care work, media’s constructions of femininity, violence against women, and feminist image production—tracing continuities and ruptures.
The exhibition is supported by the Capital Cultural Fund.
Curated by Nina Marlene Kraus
Curatorial Assistant Johanna Engemann
It was a pleasure to be invited to participate in this amazing exhibition! Below is a photo from the opening and a pdf with more information about the exhibition that you can scroll down to also see dates for upcoming events associated with the exhibition. For instance I will be having a discussion with Dr. Sascia Bailer about Care-work in the arts. I will also include some more glimpses into the opening ceremony and the other works from the artists presented there as a link provided down below.
