Video still image from: Person #24, video performance. 2012
“(…) the philosopher Judith Butler asks how does power, upon which the subject’s existence depends and which it is compelled to repeat, turn against itself during the process of repetition? How is resistance conceived in concepts of repetition? (Judith Butler, 2002: 27) In Butler’s opinion divergence and difference are immanent to the unavoidable repetition of gender stereotypes, since it is impossible to create identical copies of an original. From this she concludes that there is an inherent deviancy within the prevailing heteronomous gender images.
In the context of modern and contemporary art it would be possible to accompany this type of gender theory, based on so-called gender studies, with reflections on the constitution of the subject, as found for instance in serial art in the early 1960s and the (feminist) performance, body art and video works since the 1970s. (…)”
Sabeth Buchmann, excerpt from: Woman without Qualities | Art with Qualities. In: Karin Felbermayr, Performative Elements. Verbrecher Verlag, Berlin 2007. translation: Ann Robertson