MICHAELA MOSCOUW – Present Absent

MICHAELA MOSCOUW – Present Absent

edited by Alfred Weidinger and Isolde Perndl for the OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH

With a text from Maria Venzl and an excerpt and quotes of the film Moscouw from Joerg Burger, Produktion Navigator Film, 2001 / Graphic design: Studio Anouk Rehorek

German/English, 288 pages, 19,8 × 25,5 cm, numerous color and b/w images, Hardcover

May 2023

978-3-903447-03-5

€ 28,00 [A]

€ 27,30 [D]

Self-staging, self-exposure, self-erasure - these are the themes that Michaela Moscouw (*1961) worked on uncompromisingly, excessively and memorably over three decades. Until the early 1980s, the Viennese artist painted abstract pictures, then she destroyed her entire oeuvre and filmed herself doing it. She thus changed medium and since then has exclusively used the means of photography. She obsessively pursued concepts and designs of an aestheticised body experience.

For her self-stagings as a radical act and expression of personal emotionality, she acted like an actress rehearsing different roles, questioning gender-specific clichés and body images. She worked on the terrain of VALIE EXPORTS, Friederike Pezolds or Renate Bertlmanns.

Today, Michaela Moscouw lives in seclusion in Vienna. Her works have been continuously destroyed, yet works by her have survived in public and private collections. The catalogue presents the preserved photographic work, from early large-format self-portraits in black and white to the colour images from the early 2000s.

Exhibition opening Michaela Moscouw Present Absent 9.2.2023 at Francisco Carolinum Linz

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Michaela Moscouw, Anwesend Abwesend, Francisco Carolinum, Linz from 10.02.–14.05.2023

 

A wonderful book, the works are great, 
Michaela Moscouw is such an interesting position! 
The book is incredibly successful!

- Eva Schlegel, artist