My Body is Your Vehicle: Materialität als Reflexionsbegriff in den Werken von Janine Antoni

Abstract

Through the radical use of the sheer materiality of the artwork, including her own body, Janine Antoni intends a profound encounter between herself, the artwork and the viewer. The work of art becomes thereby a critical concept of reflection and an occasion for reflexive thinking regarding the identity of the subject in the contemporary postmodern consumer society. This essay examines where and how in the art historical reception is Antoni’s sculpture and performance art portrayed, due to its display of materiality, as a locus of reflection on the constitution of subjectivity.