Cora Pongracz “erweiterte portraits” at Maxwell Graham, New York


Message:
My soul—
My soul is in great disarray, my cameras too.
My closet is in great disarray.
The housewife can be understood by her closet.
Allegedly.
I want a self portrait, says Valie.
How do you imagine that?
My soul is a camera, a camera obscura, a box.
What is that supposed to mean?
“That is just what it is called” someone claims, as he always does?
The Origin of Photography:
A film is born in a black hole.
Conceived by light.

Cora Pongracz, 1974

“erweiterte portraits” was Pongracz’ original and intended title for a body of work and catalogue published in 1974. “erweiterte portraits” means expanded portraits.

Cora Pongracz was born in Argentina in 1943, to Jewish parents that fled Austria during World War II. After returning to Europe, Pongracz received a traditional training in photography in Frankfurt and Munich, and eventually resettled in Vienna. Pongracz was centrally involved with a group of philosophers and artists in the capital in the late 1960s and 1970s. The social and cultural organization of Austria in that era was overwhelmingly patriarchal. To earn both a living and some autonomy, Pongracz would produce scenic views for travel guides, as well as documentation of many of the Viennese Actionists’ transgressive (abusive) performers. To this day, her honorific depictions of important men, Theodor Adorno, Hundertwasser, Arnulf Rainer, Dieter Roth, Franz West and Otto Muehl, are her best known photographs.

Cora Pongracz’ real work as an artist was rather distinct in subject and structure. Pongracz reimagined what a portrait could be. In 1974, she conceived of a format of multiple-part portraits of eight women in her community. Each portrait consisted of seven photographs; two photographs beholding the woman and five photographs based on terms suggested by the woman to expand understanding of who they were. These suggested terms were not publicly disclosed. The expanded portrait of Mira, for instance, consists of two photographs of Mira, a photograph of a woman eating, an empty bird cage, a darkened stairway, the backside of Haus Wittgenstein, and of Pongracz herself; all of these diverse images remain portraits of Mira. “erweiterte portraits” is remarkable for its development in the concept of both authorship and identity. The work insisted that the women portrayed have some agency in the authorship of the work. The work insisted that the identity of the women portrayed go beyond visage to also include context and referent.

When the catalogue was released, the publisher rebranded and simplified the title, from erweiterte portraits to FRAUEN IN WIEN (WOMEN IN VIENNA) and included a dust jacket which included only images of the woman’s faces.

at Maxwell Graham, New York
until February 25, 2023



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