Performance
In 1961/62, Niki de Saint Phalle's shooting performances caused an international sensation. She prepared wood boards with plaster and paint bombs, spreading the paint over the 'picture' by shooting at it with a rifle. But it was not only the bleeding paintings which bothered critics and audience alike, but the image of the armed woman as well as Saint Phalle's open aggressiveness and thrill while shooting. One of many possible interpretations of this work was offered by the artist herself: "I was shooting at myself, society with its injustices, I was shooting at my own violence, and the violences of the time."
Cornelia Sollfrank seized on this work and repeated it in her performance TroubleShooting. Sollfrank, who has long been interested in firearms and has also assembled a vast collection of images of women with guns, used the repetition of the performance as an opportunity to learn how to shoot and to confront the question: who or what she would point her gun at?
In the end, Sollfrank's most important concern is to find an answer - with the help of this experiment - to the question: do contemporary concepts of femininity include openly expressed aggressiveness?
In 1961/62, Niki de Saint Phalle's shooting performances caused an international sensation. She prepared wood boards with plaster and paint bombs, spreading the paint over the 'picture' by shooting at it with a rifle. But it was not only the bleeding paintings which bothered critics and audience alike, but the image of the armed woman as well as Saint Phalle's open aggressiveness and thrill while shooting. One of many possible interpretations of this work was offered by the artist herself: "I was shooting at myself, society with its injustices, I was shooting at my own violence, and the violences of the time."
Cornelia Sollfrank seized on this work and repeated it in her performance TroubleShooting. Sollfrank, who has long been interested in firearms and has also assembled a vast collection of images of women with guns, used the repetition of the performance as an opportunity to learn how to shoot and to confront the question: who or what she would point her gun at?
In the end, Sollfrank's most important concern is to find an answer - with the help of this experiment - to the question: do contemporary concepts of femininity include openly expressed aggressiveness?
