Retrospective: Linda Christanell

Before turning to film as a medium of expression, Linda Christanell—a key figure in the Austrian feminist avant-garde—created textile sculptures, alongside installations, performances, and book and photography projects, following her studies in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. These fabric-based objects are part of a broader universe of items that frequently reappear in Christanell’s films. In addition to her own artworks, these often include everyday objects: costume jewelry, shoes, fur and lace, postcards, and old photographs. Through a feminist reinterpretation of this collection—typically associated with the feminine—the filmmaker constructs an arsenal of fetishes, imbuing them with cinematic life in an experimental way. With a distinctive artistic signature, Christanell crafts a dazzling cosmos of images, sounds, and language that addresses socio-political questions surrounding gender roles, the body, and sexuality.

As a pioneer of feminist filmmaking, Linda Christanell not only challenged the patriarchy through her art but was also an active participant in the women’s movement. Together with artists such as Renate Bertlmann, Karin Mack, Moucle Blackout, and Margot Pilz, she was an early member of IntAkt (International Action Group of Women Visual Artists)—founded in 1977—a network that continues to advocate for equality and political participation to this day. She also co-founded the BC Collective with Renate Bertlmann; together, they created the film “Objektassoziationen” (1976), which will be screened during the second part of our retrospective this coming January.

In conjunction with the exhibition “LINDA CHRISTANELL. The Gifts of the Goddess” at the Künstlerhaus, we are presenting a two-part comprehensive survey of Christanell’s unique body of cinematic work. Since acquiring her film archive, our team has digitized and restored the artist’s complete body of work, drawing primarily from her original Super 8 and 16mm reversal films, as well as positive prints held in our collection. While a selection of these restored works is featured in the exhibition, we are presenting Christanell’s 16mm films as analog prints, and her Super 8 works in digital format. The first part of the retrospective, which you can view in November, showcases the full range of her oeuvre—from her early short films to “Picture Again” (2002), a work that centers on film as a material and cinema as a regime of looking. (Andrea Pollach)