Annegret Soltau

Who is Annegret Soltau?

Annegret Soltau is a German visual artist, born in Lüneburg, Germany.

Her work marks a fundamental reference point in the feminist art of the 1970s and 1980s.

From 1967 to 1972 she studied with Hans Thiemann, Kurt Kranz, Rudolf Hausner and David Hockney at the Academy of Fine Arts Hamburg in Germany, 1972 at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in Austria. In 1973 she received a DAAD scholarship for Milan in Italy.

Since 1973 she has freelanced, first in the sphere of painting and graphic art, then from 1975 actions and first photography and videoworks. In Soltau’s own words “Permanente Demonstration“ is “an attempt to trigger states of consciousness through realization of an image in real life, i.e. make an image physically. The line, becomes a realized line, the person is part of the picture. Line and person are not two opposite things but one reality”.

In "Selbst" the artist ties up her face with tight threads of black silk, just like a cocoon, of which she makes a photographic record that is subsequently stitched by following a geometric pattern that resembles a sign. The result is a self-harming self-portrait, an effigy that has been prevented, inhibited, forced into silence.