FOOTNOTES

Text on the Art Book “Muttertier im Vaterbauch”

What counts then?! Does a number count, the number of pages, the 387, that one can count but cannot add up, cannot sum, even when they together form a book, a reflection of years that line up here and yet resist it, resisting being summed up, rather already leaning towards a result, in the sense of what has emerged, what has happened, half sought and pursued, ultimately also found as something that had to be invented along the way, an image of oneself, for which one had to leave behind other conceptions of oneself, had to go out from oneself, from the self-image that rears up anew and claims to be more than the trace of past days, like a sum that never ends, recoiling from the idea that this may now have been everything, as if there were no remainder, no contradiction, no mistake. What counts then?! Doesn’t the mistake count, the narrative that something is missing, not yet there, an absence that propels the search, gives birth to a desire, fights against the magnetism of the frame, to flee, to struggle against the gravity of too easy goals?

This book by Anita Frech was never the goal of any of her works, none aimed to end up in a book, side by side, bound together as if they had finally found their place, their spot in the course of years. It is only their images that they provide here, images of images that step out of the shadows, into the light of a chronology that tells something different than a catalog or documentation could attest. In their juxtaposition and succession, a sequence emerges that was never intended, not foreseeable, a result far from the sum. What emerges here is a simultaneity that does not count all the years together but draws them together, unites them into a book that does not aim for an overview but for a narrative that feeds on the unknown, unintended strokes that reside in every work, every movement and intention, a narrative that eludes the knowable, that emerges, trusting in the intuitive, the eventful, which only answers those questions that one poses only afterwards. The same applies to the different genres and media, the drawings and paintings, the photographs and performances, each of which stood at the forefront in its time, alternating, promising to stand by the search for the right expression, gathering into a series, attempting to pursue a motif, to be guided by the experiment, to find out what emerges in its course.

In the book, they now come together, reflecting themselves in the horizon of simultaneity, making visible connections and continuities that transcend the mere boundaries between media and genres, giving voice to a resonance that becomes audible even in the title: “Muttertier im Vaterbauch” (Mother Animal in Father’s Belly), they sound as parental as they are amorphous, shifting the boundaries between animal and human, the roles of genders, pregnant with an image in which the father carries the mother, digesting the familial within. What does the body carry, what does it endure, where does it carry, what has been given to it as a person, how does it reconcile itself with the image that this person has developed of their own body, how does it reconcile itself with the images of other bodies, with which it is compared, from which it is distinguished, staged for these, yes, for the person themselves, who argues with their own body, seduces themselves, alienates themselves, finds themselves again as in a marriage that was never closed, never agreed upon? All the decisions to sketch, to paint, to photograph the body, to capture moments, to expose it, to distort it and make it disappear, the images of a forced marriage with one’s own body, the invisible scars nourished by desire and injury, come together here, switch sides, gather together, page by page in the light of simultaneity.

As unquenchable as dispute resides in democracy, the knowledge that it must fight for it, must allow contradictions and political differences, must always open itself up again to counter premature totalizations and exclusions, must remain open to those whose voices have not yet been heard, so democratic appears the concept of the body that is given voice in this book. In constant dispute with the influences that inscribe themselves into the body, penetrate it or are rejected by it, it resists a final definition, a final image. While a portrait usually aims for an image that captures a body, the portraits in this book seek deviance, the features that deviate from the valid image, that have not yet been expressed, that arise unexpectedly, have been missing, mark gaps, the mistakes that count when it comes to distinguishing the face, the body from a living death mask. The drawings and performances also grapple with media requirements, with films and photographs that have attempted in their time to wrest a face of the time, to capture moments that did not seem contemporary, that should be kept hidden or concealed, excluded from the societal image. Film Noir. Photographs from police archives from the 1930s, resonances from magazines and a media environment that not only reproduces images but also shapes characters and norms, unwritten laws that are supposed to act through visual regularities, are supposed to count, are supposed to pay off.

An economy of poses and dress codes, of role models ranging from pin-up girl to victim, from appeal to drama, promotes a whole spectrum of available identities, revealing only that for the search for the self-image there is already a whole market waiting to provide a visual counterpart to the imaginary. If photography was a medium that was supposed to enable a slice of this reality to be depicted, in this economy reality is oriented towards the image, which generates reality first, which then depicts it. Its reproducibility then guarantees the interface to the economy, which suggests the old relation between audience and performers. Photography replaces the present with a potential audience and the camera plays both stage and audience at the same time. Anita Frech’s self-staging for the photographic image exposes this “self-publicity”, the aesthetics of a self-image in the horizon of its publication, the moment when the seclusion of the private and the public can only be thought of as merged. The image itself becomes the place where the private and the public meet, regardless of how secluded the place of the shoot may be. As a place, photography simultaneously represents a space for which and in which other criteria apply, whether it be composition, color coordination, capturing a moment and a closeness, the fragmentary that breaks out of the context. These criteria of the image make it possible to bring into play the various genres in which images appear: The palette here ranges from painting and drawing to photography and film, which are simultaneously or against each other in the productions. What would be assigned to photography in terms of media is also conveyed as painting, film, and performance. Their use of the self-timer also allows them to act both in front of and behind the camera, to take on the roles of photographer and performer at the same time, to be both subject and object, thus giving expression to the simultaneity and contradictions inherent in a contemporary concept of the body. How many pages does a book, a body have? Who counts what counts?!

Andreas Spiegl
Vienna, 2020