XENIA HAUSNER
XENIA HAUSNER November 14, 2019 – January 1 1, 2020
FORU M G ALLERY
On Fire, 2018 oil on Dibond 59 x 75½ inches
XENIA HAUSNER
By Jessa Crispin
“My characters are disobedient. I am disobedient.” —Xenia Hausner
THIS SHOW WAS ONCE going to be titled Disobedience. It
for creation or destruction. We can look to their faces to tell
was once going to be titled a lot of things. When you’re try-
us which they have in mind, but their faces are impassive. Their
ing to choose a title, a word that will explain your intention,
gazes are steady. Whatever their specific plans are, they are
your philosophy, your perspective, many words get tossed up;
keeping them from us.
“Disobedience” was floated, but ultimately abandoned with all the others.
It is the determination in their faces that tells us whatever act they are about to commit is not one of rebellion—but
But for me, it lingers. Even though the painting that originally
disobedience.
carried that name is now titled “On Fire,” when I look at this collection of paintings, the word, disobedience, is still in my
To disobey is to know the rules but to reject them. It is to act
head. What does it mean to disobey? What does it mean to
by a code higher than that constructed by the state, by the
refer to these figures, none of them wilding out or throwing
economy, by traditions of etiquette. And anyway, etiquette is
bombs or having a tantrum? Mostly they are looking. You are
always merely an impossible list of behaviors those in power
looking at them and they are looking at you. But as I looked,
would like you to exhibit to show your deference and make
and as I was looked at, the word seemed to fit. Disobedient.
them more comfortable with your intrusive and unwelcome presence. You eat with the correct fork, not because mixing
The women of the painting now titled “On Fire” are holding
forks up would ruin the pleasure of the food on your plate, but
tools. The hammer and the chisel are tools that can be used
to show to your hosts, who decided for all of us which fork
is the right fork, that you are willing to play by their arbitrary
are on a train, but their destination, their intent, remains
rules and not upset them in any way.
unknowable. They are in trouble; that we know from the title, but are they heading toward it or away from it? Are they
So yes. As I looked at the subjects in Hausner’s paintings, and
making their big escape or are they in transit to dangers that
as they looked back at me, the word that kept coming back to
only we, the audience, can sense? The glass looks like water,
my mind was “disobedience.”
becoming a visual representation of their danger and our dread. One woman is immersed within it, one is struggling to
Maybe it has something to do with the amount of space they
keep her head above it, the third with her arms up, waving or
are taking up on the canvas. They are quite pressed up against
signaling. They do not see us. And while we see them, there is
us, filling the air around us with their bodies. It is an indiscreet
no intervention we can make.
encounter. In “Dancer in the Dark,” the women move along an urban The worlds they occupy are unknown to us, peeking out from
environment,
caught
between
two
advertisements
for
the borders of the painting. A whole world exists just outside
competing (yet complementary) ideologies, one for Mao and
the frame, giving the paintings a suggestive and appealing pull.
the other for Disney. One woman supports the other, her arm around her. Is the woman laughing or grimacing? Is she being
Hausner does not meet her subjects where they dwell, creating
held or is she being dragged? We are witnesses to these figures
biographical work that reveals the inner world of her models;
only for a moment, how their situations resolve (or refuse to)
she instead creates a mise en scène for them to inhabit and
all happens outside the frame.
characters for them to embody. These are portraits, but they are portraits of characters, and the result is somewhere
Maybe it is this character work and Hausner’s previous life in the
between the model and the character Hausner constructs for
theater that has me thinking of films when I look at her work. I
them. They are themselves, they are not themselves. They are
see “Emergency” and think of the Romanian Film 4 Months, 3
pretending, they are dead serious.
Weeks, and 2 Days,1 and the last shot, as the woman who has just been through a tough day to procure an illegal abortion
There is an ambiguity to the scenes, and the mood of the
for her friend in Communist Romania, having scrounged up
paintings keeps shifting. We can tell these “Women in Trouble”
the money and been forced to trade sex for medical care and
having destroyed evidence of the crime, looks directly into the
the brain and into the body, into the very core of being. To
camera in one final, exhausted, shot.
gaze, then, was to be transformed. To gaze upon the beloved is to become more like the beloved and take on their qualities.
I see “Agent Provocateur” and think of the films of Margarethe
To gaze upon a monstrosity is to become a little monstrous
von Trotta, the German New Wave director, and her movie
yourself. And to hold eye contact, to be held in a mutual,
about a woman who robs a bank in order to help fund the
reciprocal gaze, then one enters a contract or an agreement
nursery school that is on the brink of closing. 2 Or her movie
to transform each other and be bonded by a new acquired
about a woman who loves and helps a member of the Red
likeness. 4
Army Faction and stands up against the police and media who harass and demonize her for it. 3 I think of their gentle defiance
This is a much more powerful theory of looking, one with much
and their certainty that what they are doing is right, even if the
more potential for empathy, for change, and for connection.
consequences are great.
To see someone, to see their reality and their humanity, then becomes an act of compassion. Something is exchanged, not
Which means that I’m thinking about disobedience again, and
forcibly taken.
these acts of care and support that have been rendered illegal, unacceptable, criminal.
Hausner commented to me that working with live models is “very tiring.” “For a person sitting and being stared at, they are
Ever since the birth of the idea of the “male gaze,” feminist
exhausted from being looked at intensely.” In so many of her
art criticism has been dominated by this idea of the gaze as
works, the subjects are not merely being looked at, they are
oppressive. The act of looking at something turns a subject into
actively looking back, at Hausner, at us. In each instance, we
an object, making the gaze an act of violence. With nothing
are, all of us, changed.
but respect to Sartre and Mulvey, who worked out the first flashes of this idea, this idea never quite seemed right to me.
If we disobey this theory of the gaze as an act of objectification, we free ourselves from it. We can see sight as a humane act,
According to early Renaissance thought, the act of looking had
although that requires us to welcome the change rendered by
the most profound effect on the viewer, not the subject. That
sight. And freedom, ultimately, is what disobedience is for.
which is taken into the eye, it was thought, is also taken into
Jessa Crispin is the author of The Dead Ladies Project and Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto. She was the editor and founder of Bookslut.com, which ran from 2002–2016. She has written for many publications, some of which are still in existence. Born and raised in rural Kansas, she now divides her time between Berlin and Baltimore. Notes: 1
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. Directed by Cristian Mungiu, performances by
Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, and Vlad Ivanov, BAC Films, 2007. 2
The Second Awakening of Christa Klages. Directed by Margarethe von Trotta,
performances by Tina Engel, Silvia Reize, and Katharina Thalbach, Filmverlag der Autoren, 1978. 3
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum. Directed by Margarethe von Trotta and
Volker SchlĂśndorff, performances by Angela Winkler, Mario Adorf, and Dieter Laser, Cinema International Corporation and New World Pictures, 1975. 4
Couliano, Ioan P. Eros and Magic in the Renaissance. University of Chicago
Press, 1988.
China Club II, 2018 oil on Dibond 53 x 89³⁄8 inches
Women in Trouble, 2018 oil on Dibond 63 x 40½ inches
Dancer in the Dark, 2015 oil on Dibond 49Âź x 60Âź inches
Agent Provocateur, 2019 oil on Dibond 65 x 54 inches
Borodino, 2019 oil on 310g Hahnemühle paper on panel 39³⁄8 x 61½ inches
Cosa Nostra, 2018 oil on Dibond 23½ x 39³⁄8 inches
Rubber Soul, 2019 oil on Dibond 377â „8 x 51 inches
Pompeii, 2019 oil on Dibond 45²⁄3 x 65¹⁄3 inches
Private Collection
Emergency, 2017 oil on Dibond 41 x 52ž inches
Indigo Yao, 2013 oil on Dibond 34½ x 52¾ inches
Sleepwalking, 2019 oil on Dibond 27½ x 48½ inches
XENIA HAUSNER 1951
Born in Vienna, Austria
1972–1976 Studied stage design at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, London 1977–1992 Painted over 100 theater and opera sets, for spaces including the Burgtheater in Vienna, Vienna State Opera, Salzburg Festival, Berlin State Theater, Covent Garden in London, Théatre de la Monnaie in Brussels 1981
Studio in Berlin, Germany
1992
Began to work exclusively as an independent painter
Lives and works in Berlin and in Vienna
SELECTED EX HI BI T I ON S 1996
The Power of Images, Martin-Gropius- Bau, Berlin, Germany
Human Pictures, Galerie Thomas, Munich, Germany
Masterpieces of Austrian Contemporary Art, Galerie Heike Curtze, Salzburg, Austria 1997
Xenia Hausner: Love Fragments, Kunsthalle Vienna/Museum der bildenden Kunste Leipzig, Germany
Contemporary Art in Austria, European Monetary Institute, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Xenia Hausner: Love Fragments, Jesuitenkirche, Galerie der Stadl Aschaffenburg, Germany
Xenia Hausner: Strange Reports of a Far Nearness, Kunstfest Weimar “Pèlerinages,” Germany
1999
Figuration, Rupertinum, Museum of Modern Art, Salzburg/Museion, Museum of Modern Art of the city of Bozen/Ursula Blickle Stiflung, Kraichtal
2005
Physiognomy of the 2nd Republic, Austrian Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, Austria
Round Leather Worlds, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany
Xenia Hausner: Glücksfall, Einzelschau, Ludwig Museum, Koblenz, Germany
2006
Back to the Figure–Contemporary Painting, Kunsthalle der Hypokulturstiftung, Munich, Germany
Xenia Hausner–Glücksfall, KunstHaus, Vienna, Austria
2000 Xenia Hausner: Heart Matters, Käthe- Kollwitz Museum, Berlin, Germany /State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
Xenia Hausner: Paintings, Ernst Barlach Museum, Hamburg/Wedel, Germany
Xenia Hausner: Heart Matters, Forum Gallery, New York, NY
2001
Xenia Hausner: New Works, Rupertinum, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria
Works on Paper, Galerie 422, Gmunden, Austria
Xenia Hausner: New Works, Galerie Thomas, Munich, Germany
2002
Xenia Hausner: Paintings, Galerie Kämpf, Basel, Switzerland
Xenia Hausner: Paintings, Galerie Hohmann, Hamburg, Germany
2003
New Paintings, Forum Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Xenia Hausner: Paintings, Forum Gallery, New York, NY
Xenia Hausner: Ladies Choice, Galerie Deschler, Berlin, Germany
1998
Reality and Dream, Berlin Galerie, Berlin, Germany
2004
Xenia Hausner: 2nd Nature, Charim Galerie, Vienna, Austria
Xenia Hausner: Paintings, Kunsthalle Koblenz, Germany
Xenia Hausner: The Things of Life, Kunstforum Hallein, Austria
Xenia Hausner: Upper Class und Working Girl, Galerie der Stadt Salzburg, Austria
Austria: 1900–2000 Confrontations and Continuities, Sammlung Essl, Klosterneuburg, Austria
Works on Paper, Forum Gallery, New York, NY
2007
Two, Galerie von Braunbehrens, Munich, Germany
Back to the Figure, Kunsthaus, Vienna, Austria 2008
ON Europe first Montijo International Biennal, Portugal
Xenia Hausner: You & I, Forum Gallery, New York, NY
New Acquisitions, Forum Gallery, New York, NY
2009
Summer Selections, Forum Gallery, New York, NY
Xenia Hausner, Palais Liechtenstein, Forum for Contemporary Art, Feldkirch, Austria
Yearning for an Image: The Portrait through the Ages, Kunsthalle Krems, Austria
2010
Intimacy: Bathing in Art, Kunstmuseum Ahlen, Ahlen, Germany
Trailblazer, Gabriele Münter Prize 2010, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
2015
From Hockney to Holbein. The Würth Collection in Berlin, Martin-Gropius- Bau, Berlin, Germany
Objects of Desire, Xenia Hausner & Dorothee Golz, Galerie 422, Gmunden, Austria
Personal Structures: Crossing Borders, Palazzo Mora, Venice, Italy
Skin Deep—Hair Dressers, Barbers, Beauticians, Wien Museum, Vienna, Austria
Soft Power, Leo Gallery, Shanghai, China
Xenia Hausner: Shaky Times, Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, Bratislava, Slovakia
Xenia Hausner, New Works, Kunsthaus Walker, Klagenfurt, Germany
2011
Xenia Hausner – Damage, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Girl, Girls, Girls, Galerie Deschler, Berlin, Germany
Sense of Family, Installation Ringturm, Vienna, Austria
Xenia Hausner, Some Hope, FO.KU.S, Innsbruck, Austria
Glasmalerei der Moderne, Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe, Germany
2012
Xenia Hausner – ÜberLeben, Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria
2016
Frau im Bild–Female Portraits from the Würth Collection, Galleri Würth, Oslo, Norway
5th Beijing International Art Biennale, Beijing (China)
Rendezvous, Meisterwerke aus der Sammlung Essl, Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria
Glass painting of the 21st century, Centre international du Vitrail, Chartres, France
Xenia Hausner–Flagrant délit, Musée Würth France, Erstein, France
2013
Sie. Selbst. Nackt, Paula Modersohn- Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany
Painting Water, Berlin Art Week, Galerie Deschler, Germany
A.E.I.O.U–Österreichische Aspekte in der Sammlung Würth, Museum Würth, Künzelsau, Germany
2014
Xenia Hausner, Look Left–Look Right, Today Art Museum, Beijing
Xenia Hausner, Look Left–Look Right, The Pao Galleries, Hong Kong Arts Center, Hong Kong
Glanzlichter. Meisterwerke zeitgenössischer Glasmalerei im Naumburger Dom, Naumburg, Germany
Die Andere Sicht, Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria
2017 Monet to Picasso: The Batliner Collection, Permanent Collection, The Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria
Xenia Hausner–Exiles in “Personal Structures: Crossing Borders,” Palazzo Bembo, Venice, Italy
Entfesselt. Malerinnen der Gegenwart, Schloss Achberg, Germany
10–Alive and Kicking, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Menagerie: An Animal Show from the Würth Collection, Forum Würth Rorschach, Switzerland
Forum Gallery Celebrates 55 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art, Forum Gallery, New York, NY
Seeing With Our Own Eyes, Forum Gallery, New York, NY
2018
Die Geste, Ludwiggalerie, Schloss Oberhausen, Germany
Guernica—Icon of Peace, Hofburg Innsbruck, Austria
2019 8th International Biennale of Contemporary Art, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
Juntos Aparte, BienalSur, Cúcuta, Colombia
Xenia Hausner: Displaced: Stories in Motion, Ducal Palace Museum Complex at the National Archaeological Museum of Matua, Italy
Warhol bis Richter, Albertina Contemporary Art, Vienna, Austria
The Still Life in Contemporary Art, Galleri Würth, Norway
Blickwechsel: Neue Frauenbilder, Galerie von Braunbehrens, Stuttgart, Germany
Frauen über Frauen, Galerie Deschler, Berlin, Germany
2019–20 Xenia Hausner, Forum Gallery, New York, NY 2020
Xenia Hausner: True Lies, The Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria
Rosenkavalier, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, Germany
SELECTED LI T ER AT UR E
CO L L E C TI O N S
Xenia Hausner, Rälselraum Fremde Frau, Edition Braus, Heidelberg, 1990
The Bennett Collection (of Women Realists), San Antonio, TX
Xenia Hausner, Menschenbilder, Galerie Thomas, Munich 1996 (catalog)
21C Museum, Louisville, KY
Xenia Hausner, Liebesfragmente, edited by Britta Scmitz, Wienand Verlag, Cologne, 1997 Xenia Hausner, Menschen, Galerie der Stadt, Aschoffenburg, Aschaffenburg, 1998 (catalog)
The Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria Museum Würth, Künzelsau, Germany Batliner Collection, Austria
Xenia Hausner: Heart Matters (Kampfzone), Introduction by Donald Kuspit and text by Aleksander Borovsky, Weiland Schmied, and Peter Weirmair, edited by Weiland Schmied, translated into English from the original German by Kate Sturge; New York: Forum Gallery Editions, 2000, Print.
Wien Museum, Vienna, Austria
Xenia Hausner—Ladies First, Second Thoughts, Wienand Verlag, Cologne, 2003
Seven Bridges Foundation, Greenwich, CT
Xenia Hausner: Hide and Seek (Glücksfall), Foreward by Beate Reifensheid and essays by Carl Aigner, Rainer Metzger, and Katharina Sykora, Munich: Prestel, 2005, Print.
Hong Kong Art Museum, Hong Kong
Xenia Hausner—Two, Galerie von Braunbehrens, Munich 2007 Xenia Hausner: You & I, essays by Carl Aigner, Bazon Brock, Rainer Metzger and Katharina Sykora, Munich: Prestel, 2008, Print. Xenia Hausner—Damage, Hirmer Verlag, 2011 Xenia Hausner—Flagrant Delit, Swiridoff Verlag, 2012 Xenia Hausner—ÜberLeben, Brandstätter Verlag, 2012 Blumenthal, P.J. and Silvano Zheng. Xenia Hausner: Look Left - Look Right (Kan Zuo - Kan You). Wien: Brandstätter, 2014. Print.
Europäische Zentralbank, Frankfurt, Germany Angerlehner Museum, Thalheim bei Wels, Austria First Art Foundation
Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Today Art Museum, Beijing, China Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria The Würth Collection, Oslo, Norway Belvedere Museum, Vienna, Austria Droege International Group, Düsseldorf, Germany Serendipity Arts Trust, New Delhi, India
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