About

Artist Statement

Since I started doing what I now call art around the age of forty I have been doing live art, performance, and sculpture. My materials are my body, my life, my relationships. Further, I find materials in the forest, city streets, and the reproductive area of the private. They are textiles, leather, meat, or sugar, and they are h:stories and intellectual work of fellow creatures. Increasingly, more traditional art materials, like plaster and metal, find their way into my work. My practice usually goes through my hands and is driven by my need to analyze, communicate, and transform. I focus on body, gender, sex, and related violence. I am interested in death, and knowledge before and beyond that what Enlightenment has given me. With my art, I want to create a space in which the unknown becomes tangible and the forgotten more likely to be remembered. As an artist who is into people, I am interested in languages beyond words and how we use them to create community and culture. I look for systems and ways of belonging. With my actions, I want nothing less than change the world.

Artist CV

Em Schwarzwald, born 1967 in Salzburg, based in Vienna, Austria, oriented towards the world.
Full Artist CV

EDUCATION
Since 2020Diploma Course Fine Arts / Contextual Painting, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
01-06 2023Fine Arts, Sculpture and Environmental Art, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, UK.
1990 – 95 Doctoral Programme Law / Criminal Law (Dr.iur.), Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg.
1985 – 90Diploma Course Law (Mag.iur.), Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg.
GROUP SHOWS
2024Cruising in the Park, Parking Space, Wien.
All You Got Is Not Just Flesh And Bones, Exhibit Studio, Wien.
2023Counter, The Albatross Gallery, Glasgow (UK).
Queer Art Spaces Vienna 2023, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Wien.
2022What are you looking at?, Exhibit Eschenbachgasse, Wien.
Bam Bam Pew, Der goldene Shit Agency, Wien.
2021Gender And Space 1, Exhibit Studio, Wien.
2020Wir sind mehr als zwei, Galerie Stol, Wien.
2019A/Rhythm Heartbeat Detector, Vinko Nino Jaeger, Ivana Marjanovic, Natasa Mackuljak,
Em Schwarzwald, Austrian Association of Women Artists, Wien.
2018In With The New, Vienna Art Week, Austrian Association of Women Artists, Wien.
2016Wildes Fleisch, VN Jaeger & Schwarzwald for Wienwoche, VN Jaeger & Schwarzwald, Wien
LIVE ART & PERFORMANCE & RELATED PRACTICES
2024Following Loss, EKA, Tallinn (Estonia).
2023The Unsaid by Anton Mirto & Ailbhe Murphy, Em Schwarzwald – performer, commissioned by The Muse, Nottinghill All Saints Church, London (UK).
2022Turning The Tide, Performance in public space, curated by Manuela Picallo Gil for The Golden Shit Agency, Yppenplatz, Wien.
The Elephant In The Room. Queering The KHM While Talking To The Director, Aktion, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Wien.
Memory Garden by Jared Gradinger, Contribution Nr. 16, https://jaredgradinger.bandcamp.com/album/memory-garden
(accessed 02 June 2024)
2021Turning The Tide (Premiere: 07 Oct. 2021) Performance in public space, curated by Stefan-Manuel Eggenweber for The Darkness Project, Wiener Prater, Wien.
2020Em’s Place. Corona Edition, Bureau Veritas, Wien.
2019Em’s Place (Premiere: 13 June 2019) One-to-one Performance, Austrian Association of Women Artists, Wien.
When We Play #3, Lecture, and Artist Talk mit Ashley Hans Scheirl und Nina Tabassomi in the frame of SEXdiskussionen, Taxispalais Kunsthalle Tirol, Innsbruck.
Wie kam eigentlich der Sex in dein Leben? Audio Piece, broadcasted on 22 April 2019 on FM Radio Freirad – Freies Radio Innsbruck.
2017I consent, by Xray Aims, Em Schwarzwald – performer, VN Jaeger & Schwarzwald, Wien.
2016Wildes Fleisch by VN Jaeger & Schwarzwald for Wienwoche, Ateliertheater, Wien.
2015Follow Your Femme, Performative Workshop, Austrian Association of Women Artists, Wien.
2012When We Play #2, Lecture Performance, Austrian Association of Women Artists, Wien.
When We Play #1, Lecture Performance, Rdeče zore in Kulturni center Q, Ljubliana (Slowenia).
2010And It Went Everywhere, by A2 Company, Em Schwarzwald – performer, in public space, Wien.
2009Dresscode. What Dresscode?!, Lecture Performance, Symposion
Extraordinary Dresscode. Costuming and Second Skin in Asia, City University Hong Kong, Hong Kong (China).
2008About Blindness, by A2 Company, Em Schwarzwald – performer, Linsbury Studios, Royal Opera House, London (UK).
Rechtswissenschaft, Feminismus und BDSM by kussembargo, as part of
Schwarzmarkt für nützliches Wissen und Nicht-Wissen Nr. 10,
eine Installation mit 111 ExpertInnen by Hannah Hurtzig, Wiener Festwochen, Wien.
Future of Death, by A2 Company, Em Schwarzwald – performer, WUK, Wien.
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
2023Counter, group show, The Albatross Gallery, Glasgow (UK).
2021Gender and Space 1, group show, Exhibit Studio, Wien.
2019A/Rhythm Heartbeat Detector, group show, workshops, performances, events, Austrian Association of Women Artists, Wien.
2013-19VN Jaeger & Schwarzwald. Autopoietischer Raum. Der Garten – founding, programming, hosting, and maintaining this artist run space together with Vinko Nino Jaeger, Wien.
RESIDENCIES
2012Austrian Association of Women Artists, Wien
2011ACO – Art and Culture Outreach, Hong Kong, China.
PUBLICATIONS
2024All You Got Is Not Just Flesh And Bones, ed. by Juan Rodrigo Torres Plata,
Jennifer Posny – Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Wien.
2021Gender ‘n Space, ed. by Asadifar, Anahita, Baltzersen, Josephine; Martin, Metin;
Schwarzwald, Em; Seibold, Stefanie; Takriti, Huda; Uranitsch, Kajetan;
Yeongeun, Jeun, https://indd.adobe.com/view/67ae3db1-04a7-4a33-
a6e1-159b18368fc2 (accessed 11 April 2023).
2010Photography by kussembargo, in: Mein heimliches Auge 25, Jahrbuch der Erotik
2010/2011, ed. by Gehrke, Schmidt (Tübingen: Konkursbuch Verlag 2010), p
299.
2008Photography by kussembargo, in: Mein heimliches Auge 22, Jahrbuch der Erotik
2007/2008, ed. By Gehrke, Schmidt (Tübingen: Konkursbuch Verlag 2008),
pp. 168 – 169, 220 – 222.
2007Photography by kussembargo, in: Mein lesbisches Auge 06, ed. by Laura
Méritt, (Tübingen: Konkursbuch Verlag 2007), pp. 210 – 212.
2005Jaeger, Schwarzwald, Envy Me, in: Mehr als eine Liebe:
Polyamouröse Beziehungen, ed. by Méritt, Bührmann, Schefzig
(Berlin: Orlanda 2005), pp 149 – 160.
MEMBERSHIPS
Seit 2019Since 2019 Vereinigung Bildender Künstlerinnen Österreichs (Austrian Association of
Women Artists)
PRESS
2021Schedlmayer, Nina: Feministische Kunst? Ist viel zu persönlich!,
Artemisa Blog, 21 Dec. 2021,
https://artemisia.blog/2021/12/22/gender-and-space-artemisia-blog/
(accessed on 11 April 2023)
2019Seidl, Walter, A/Rhythm Heartbeat Detector: Verhandlung der
Vergangenheit in der Gegenwart, art magazine, 22 June 2019,
https://www.artmagazine.cc/content107524.html (accessed 11 April
2023)
2016Maurer, Alexander: Wertvoll, aber begrenzt, Wiener Zeitung, 15 Sept
2016, https://www.wienerzeitung.at/nachrichten/chronik/wien-chronik/
844967-Wertvoll-aber-begrenzt.html
(accessed 11 April 2023).
Stöger, Katharina: Wienwoche 2016: Gemeinsam allein und für immer
zusammen, Der Standard, 14 Sept., 2016,
https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000044302301/wienwoche-2016-
gemeinsam-allein-und-fuer-immer-zusammen
(accessed 11 April 2023)
Gnauer, Herbert: Wildes Fleisch, in: Radio Dispositiv, radio show
broadcasted on FM Radio Orange 94.0 on 4 Sept. 2016, Online at
Cultural Broadcasting Archive: https://de.cba.fro.at/323275 (accessed on
11 April 2023)
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