Abstract/Summary

Dorothee Richter and her alter-ego False Hearted Fanny describe their curatorial practice from the 1990s onward. Social reproduction theory explains the foundation of projects which addressed the sexism of the art world that denied women a presence in the fields of art as well as discriminating against them as mothers. The specific situations of German women were explored in projects such as Research on Housewifery Art (1992–93), Female Coalities (1996), and Im (Be)Griff des Bildes (In the Grip/Notion of the Image) (1999) which engaged in feminist ways with new forms of curating and exhibition making including collective working and situated practice, both of which draw on feminist thinkers such as Donna Haraway as well as curatorial theory. Richter explains how these experiments in curating have provided the foundation for the radically democratic approach to pedagogy that she now undertakes as the Director of the Programme in Curating at the Zurich University of the Arts, the Editor of OnCurating journal and the director of the OnCurating project space.