23.6. – 8.10.2023
EVA & ADELE come from the future. However, contemporary art history would be inconceivable without them.
Details and information about the origin and biography of the artist duo EVA & ADELE are limited to information about their body mass. Since they landed on the contemporary art scene in the 1990s as art figures from the future, they have led a life as a total work of art.
The artist duo, always completely identical and usually dressed in pink, with their shaved heads and elaborate makeup, has long since become a living factotum of the global art world. With handbags, umbrellas and high heels, they are present – always extremely friendly and polite – at all relevant major art events.
But their lives as a total work of art do not end with their appearances in the art world as such. It is an “eternal performance.” They continue it consistently in everyday life, whether walking to the supermarket or traveling. In the process, they have completely abandoned their private identities for their work.
To prepare themselves for the public, they need several hours every day to actually go out of the house together, completely identically made up and dressed. “We try, no matter where we are, to always paint the same picture very precisely. In the sense of conceptual painting, these are pictures on our skin,” they say.
However, the actual artistic work of EVA & ADELE consists not only of their appearance itself. But in particular also in the reactions, which they caused and cause thereby. Many people they meet want to be photographed together with them. For their appearance, they were and still are not rarely insulted or threatened. To remain friendly and polite at all times also requires a great deal of courage: “From the very beginning, we had the intention of overthrowing the traditional image of the artist and setting a new image of the artist. At the same time, however, we also wanted to have a socially transformative effect,” they say.
One of their central concerns is the right of every human being to his or her own gender: “We work for the right that every human being can determine his or her own gender without having to undergo surgery.” They have been advocating this position of self-defined sexual assignment long before the LGBTQIA+ communities pushed the public discourse on this issue in a broader public.
The exhibition at OK-Centrum Linz will feature biographical sculptures and never-before-seen Polaroids by the artist couple.
EVA & ADELE. The Present of the Future
23.6. – 8.10.2023
OK Linz
www.ooekultur.at
