62 INA LOITZL dedicates her artistic practice to socio-societal problems and feminist topics and humorously breaks down long-standing clichés and taboos, especially in connection with the female body and the position of women in society. As an artist she works primarily with video, textiles and silhouettes – the exploration of space also plays a major role. Performative art continues to establish itself in her artistic cosmos. For example in the context of “ARTBOXING” she climbs into the ring as artist “A” and fights against her own motivation, the role of a woman in the art business and the competition of her colleagues or transforms herself into her series “CUTOUT MONKEY” into a gorilla to draw attention to the precarious situation of many artists. “Make yourself a monkey” – this statement has a dual meaning in the case of “CUTOUT MONKEY” by INA LOITZL: The artist choses the monkey costume, on the one hand to attract attention to artistic creation in public space and on the other hand to express the closeness of the ape to the human being. Like the gorilla in the zoo, the artist can be observed in her costume during the creative process and in her everyday work, which usually remains hidden behind closed studio doors. However, this possibility was also offered to her, so she was able to perceive what was happening around her glass cage and began to interact with her environment on the other side of the window pane. In the course of the project, the communicative act with passers-by and the interaction increasingly became the artist’s focus. This provoked a wide variety of reactions from the audience, such as insults, forceful banging on the window pane, but also the gift of bananas, requests for selfies and messages. The figure of the monkey and the use of the gorilla mask open up a reference to the activist collective “Guerilla Girls”, who have been intervening in the art world with their art since 1985 and have shown the inherent gender-specific preference of museums and institutions in general. Following this, the artist wants to use her performance to encourage reflection on normally opaque processes and disadvantages. She is concerned with the position of women and artists in the artistic field whose discrimination comes to light in addition to the social attribution of duties (children, education, care work, etc.) on the art market, lower payment, and limited possibilities of participation in art MAKE YOURSELF A MONKEY
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