Katharina Cibulka embroidered a huge gender inequality slogan on scaffolding nets covering the facade of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. The academy welcomed the project.
“As long as art market is a boys’ club I will be a feminist”, July 2018, Vienna, Austria. Source: Katharina Schiller/Artnet.com
Katharina Cibulka started her project titled Solange (a German word for “as long as”) in 2016. The artist finds buildings under reconstruction and emblazons scaffolding protection nets with huge pink political messages focusing mostly on gender equality. In Austria, buildings are often covered with protection nets, which Katharina uses as a canvas, Artnet reports.
The latest work in the series appeared on the walls of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, the city’s oldest and Auria's most prestigious art school. The slogan reads: “As long as art market is a boys’ club I will be a feminist.”
The piece, which is 7 metres long and 17 metre high, fits the natural frame formed by trees. A sculpture of German philosopher Friedrich Schiller, who once said "art is a daughter of freedom”, stands in front of the building. The work will remain on view until 2020, when renovation works are due to be finished.
A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Cibulka says her work does not criticises her alma mater. The academy announced gender equality among its values. The school’s head, Eva Blimlinger, says it is the only university in Europe and the US where female students and academic staff comprise 50%.
Like the artist, Blimlinger says the project “helps raise awareness for the fact that the international art market itself is still pretty much dominated by men”. According to Cibulka, there only 3-5% of works by women in museum collections in Europe and the US, and only 30% of woman artists are represented by commercial galleries.
See other works from the project As Long As below.
“As long as power entices men to misuse women, I will be a feminist”, April 2018, Landeck Austria. Source hereinafter: Katharina Cibulka/Artnet.com
“As long as gender equality stays a never-ending building site, I will be a feminist”, July 2018, Innsbruck, Austria
“As long as I talk about career and you understand family management, I will be a feminist”, March 2018, Innsbruck, Austria