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