Sheroes, 2013
Installation view
Organized by Melissa Steckbauer and Alex Tennigkeit
Participation by Lydia Hamann, Mathilde ter Heijne, Antje Majewski, Kaj Osteroth, Jen Ray, Tanja Schomaker, Melissa Steckbauer, & Alex Tennigkeit
A part of ƒƒ Collaborations, organized by Antje Majewski & Melissa Steckbauer 
Galerie im Körnerpark, Berlin

In order to re-imagine sheroes of the past and present, Alex Tennigkeit and Melissa Steckbauer have initiated the following project: an open, costumed performance including the free painterly execution of a selection of sheroes, executed in a single, communal painting. The group at large is inspired by multifarious resources beginning with the Sister Chapel Project and Sylvia Sleighs paintings of women artist groups. The selected sheroes are borrowed from a wide range of sources, and include but are not limited to Germania, Queen Califia, and the 80’s cartoon icon Shera.

Addressing the allegorical nature of female icons of power, their limited placement in visual culture, and born of the desire to stretch and enhance this circumstance, the artists will re-present them by first playfully re-dressing themselves as these figures and will then paint portraits of one other–as a group and on a single canvas–in the characters that each of the artists have individually chosen to embody. The execution will be free and open to interpretation and the public is invited to witness the creation of the communal painting.