Autoagresja- Kolekcja wstydliwych gestów
Autoagression

Summary/Abstract: Agata Jakubowska talks to Anna Baumgart and Joanna Turowicz: Collection of Embarrassing Gestures. The Collection of Embarrassing Gestures exhibition held at Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw from 19 April to 16 May 2004 included a viewing of a stirring video film by Anna Baumgart called Ecstatics, Hysterics and Other Female Saints. The 10-minute piece contained an exceptionally condensed emotional charge. Self-destructive and hysterical female gestures which until now have not been acknowledged have finally been shown to the public. The participation of the author and Joanna Turowicz, the curator of the exhibition, in the film is a noteworthy fact which proves their immense emotional involvement. Both declare that they are fascinated by the enormous creative potential concealed in female auto-aggression and hysteria. Wounding one’s body and cries of despair constitute a specific performance which is usually played out in private. One scene seems to be particularly moving: a crouching woman produces sounds which at times resemble howling and at times a song of mourning. She is biting her arm and a small child toddles around her. This scene seems to be even more touching than the one in which the depicted character cuts herself with a razorblade. Why do women consciously inflict physical pain upon themselves? Both Anna Baumgart and Joanna Turowicz claim that auto-aggression is a way of acting against social enslavement and a way of expressing the nonverbal. Their body language expresses their existential pain. Maybe this brings back the lost sense of their lives which finally becomes touchable again.

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