Renate Bertlmann: Tender Touches

The principle of pleasure oozes from every pore of Renate Berltmann’s work. Since the 1970s, the radical Austrian artist has incorporated gendered object trouves in her multi-faceted practice, creating sculpture, performance and photography that use fetish objects typically associated with male sexual fantasies – dildos, condoms and sex dolls – as the basis of her work.

This online exhibition looks to Bertlmann's Tender Object series, conflating and subverting gender stereotypes with her photographic works Zärtliche Berührungen [Tender Touches] (1976) showing latex teats, made by stretching and inflating condoms, tenderly and erotically caressing one another. Her Tender Christ (1981) works document her surreptitious intervention of a crucifix, secretly placing a crown of blown-up condoms around Jesus's head.

The online presentation coincides with Bertlmann's representation of Austria at the Venice Biennale (11 May – 24 November) and her exhibition 'Hier ruht meineZärtlichkeit [Here lies by Tenderness]’ that will inaugurate the State Gallery of Lower Austria in Krems on 25 May.