KIP MASKER
Body parts are veiled in textured outfits. Soft, strained breathing accompanies the picture, intermixed with the occasional crackling of latex. From the start, I am faced with the task of disentangling the compositions magnified on screen: a hole purposely cut into a white bra with a shoulder muscle swelling over the seams? A white supporter for a packer (a silicone penis), worn the other way around? Flesh-colored straps of rubber to squeeze the stomach? Nylon stocking material that surrounds a torso. A black latex bodice with hair protruding outwards - from the underarms or the pubic region? What I want to do is to calm the shimmering, still-standing pictures, turn the monitor around 80 degrees, 190 degrees and back again to be able to track down the individual body parts and pieces of material. But before I can act on this idea, turn my head 90 degrees to the side, hang it down - the textiles and bodies, gushing constrictions, squashed sprawls and subdued panting are already over. Three minutes, 25 seconds.
(Johanna Schaffer)
The absurd combination of the body and the misappropriated use of clothing enlist the viewer into a fluid stream of sculptural moments and constructs that dissolve after a fleeting manifestation. (…) The performance intends to analyze and play with ideas about the body, the fetishization of clothing, and lastly, question whether it is possible to rethink the perception of the (nude) body.(…) In KIP MASKER I unite the roles of performer and camerawoman (video artist). I see these two functions united in one person as an expression of a new, expanded concept of feminist self evidence.
(Maria Petschnig)
(...) With her camera, and with her clothes, she transforms her body not for the sake of others, but for herself. She stays within her room, bending and pinching her body so that she can regard it. In this private space, her body is matter, unfamiliar. If there is an eroticism in this video, it is not from the hint of bondage her garments suggest, but from the intimacy and intensity of her gaze. We never see her face, nor the fullness of her figure. Petschnig provides no recognizable image of a “woman” to relieve us. Instead she leaves us to imagine for ourselves the rest of her: the way she looks out there, beyond the bedroom.
(maria.petschnig.cc)
KIP MASKER / texte français
La mise en relation de mon corps avec des effets vestimentaires que je détourne de leur fonction fait naître avec le flux dimages des constructions formelles qui, après une apparition éphémère, sévanouissent. (...) Ma démarche artistique consiste en une interrogation, mais aussi en un jeu avec des idées du corps, avec la fétichisation daccessoires vestimentaires, et surtout en la question de savoir sil est possible de porter un regard formel abstrait sur le corps (nu). (...) Dans KIP MASKER, je fais fusionner le rôle dartiste performer et celui de camérawoman ou vidéaste. La réunion de ces deux fonctions en une seule et même personne est pour moi lexpression dune conception neuve, élargie, de lidentité féministe affirmée. (Maria Petschnig)