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Annette Tesarek is an Austrian based artist working in the field of photography, performance and publishing. Her practice includes showing art in unconventional and extended places to confront the recipient with new perspectives. This enables the viewer to question existing stereotypes and roles and potentially to change attitudes and preferences. She installs a group of self-portraits as “BATS” in the ceiling, evoking distance or intimacy, fascination or disgust, attack or defense (2022).

Annette Tesarek: “The work BATS is a performative photo installation. Part of the ceiling of the room is temporarily occupied by a photo installation variable in shape and size. The photographs, self-portraits of the artist, are reminiscent of bats staring down from the ceiling in a group. They confront the viewer with an unusual perspective in the exhibition context: stereotypes and gender roles become blurred, the collective becomes part of an absurd vision. While the performative act becomes a means to an end, does the human being mutate into an animal or vice versa?

The field of meaning of the body, with all its biological and social implications, is immeasurable. For Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the body is the mediating instance between body and mind, as well as the medium for experiencing the world. The bats challenge the viewers to change their perspective and thus open up an unusual field of perception and tension that oscillates between individual and group, intimacy and distance, fascination and disgust, attack or defense.”