How Gender Check came about
In autumn 2007 ERSTE Foundation and the PATTERNS Advisory Panel (Cosmin Costinas, Veronica Kaup-Hasler, Piotr Piotrowski, Georg Schöllhammer) asked seven international curators to develop a concept to mark the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain. After discussing the five proposals they received, ERSTE Foundation and the Advisory Panel selected the project submitted by Bojana Pejić. Her exhibition, which focused on gender difference(s) in Eastern European art from the 1960s to the present day, required exhaustive research. Twenty-five art historians and critics scoured archives, museums and libraries, artists’ legacies and exhibition catalogues in 24 countries ranging from Lithuania and Bulgaria to Armenia and the former East Germany.
Left: Lavinia Bashebuk-Melikian (Armenia), Self-Portrait, 1989, Oil on canvas, © Lavinia Bashebuk-Melikian
Right: Helga Paris (DDR), Frauen im Bekleidungswerk Treff-Modelle, Berlin, 1984, Photoserie, © Helga Paris
