POWER UP. Female Pop Artists
Evelyne Axell, Pauline Boty, Sister Corita Kent, Kiki Kogelnik, Marisol, Niki de Saint Phalle
KUNSTHALLE wien, hall 1,VIENNA
November 05th, 2010 - February 20th, 2011

The exhibition Power Up – Female Pop Artists is aimed at a re-evaluation of the hitherto grossly underrated share of important female personalities
in Pop Art. Sister Corita Kent’s work, like that of Evelyne Axell,
Pauline Boty, Kiki Kogelnik, Niki de Saint Phalle and Marisol, stands for a feminine strategyof artistic self-empowerment.
Oscillating between the poles of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, figuration and abstraction, and high and low art, the works of the women artists on display frequently resemble those by their male colleagues in terms of material, subject matter, style, and working method. The ladies of the “Années Pop” celebrate female
sexuality and lust, apply pin-ups and excerpts from consumer culture in
the manner of bad girls, comment upon the economic upswing’s social
impact, transmit fragments of the occasionally banal world of daily routine,
and in their clearly autobiographically tinted works translate their
personal concerns into political ones. What they share with this movement
is the humor and lightness of an attitude towards life whose facets
and variations still make their appearance in contemporary art.