*1949, Zagreb. Lives in Zagreb.


Photographic Documentation and Archive of Manifesta 2:
Roman Mensing, Münster

Women's Room / Fraënhaus Project, 1998 (mixed media)

Already in the 1970s, Sanja Ivecovic made herself known as a pioneer of video art and as a key figure of feminist art. Today, she is the centrepiece of non-conformist art and a defender of the Croatian peace movement. The project ³Fraënhaus² is the result of several months of discussions between the artist and women's associations in both Croatia and Luxembourg.
On the glass front of the Musée d'Histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg, she has marked the names of some twenty women who, for the duration of Manifesta 2, have to spend their days in shelters for abused women in Zagreb and Luxembourg. Postcards with information about the story of each of these women are available on each exhibition venue, creating links between the visitor of the exhibition and the women in the shelters.
The casts of the women's faces along with their personal life stories make up Sanja Ivekovic's installation in the Musée national d'histoire et d'art. The masks are presented in an environment almost as "natural" as that of museums' departments of ethnology.
Sanja Ivekovic questions the underlying relations between the ideals of beauty and violence, between icon and conflict. These relations are considered as new variations on a timeless theme that has infused art history ever since.

Musée national d'histoire et d'art; Musée d'Histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg


Return to top