Rose-Anne Gush: Artistic Labour of the Body
Lecture
Friday, November 27, 2026, 6 pm

In this lecture, Rose-Anne Gush examines VALIE EXPORT's and Elfriede Jelinek's use of the body and psyche as artistic material to explore Adorno’s concept of artistic labour. By deploying the body as artistic material, their works challenge women’s reduction to reproductive function or sexual object, articulating a feminism beyond "innocence". The talk will demonstrate how their art critiqued postwar Austria’s culture of disavowal, where unprocessed legacies of Nazism perpetuated Austria’s victimhood myth, while also exploring the complex identifications within this critique. Drawing on her recent book Artistic Labour of the Body, Gush reframes postwar artistic practices that revealed the body as both a site of patriarchal-capitalist violence and a site of resistance.

The lecture will be held in English.

Registration available shortly.