Elke Krystufek is an artist who does not restrict herself to a single medium. In photo-collage and installations, videos and performances, painting and drawing, she negotiates the borders between public and private. Each one of her artistic gestures appears to be linked to her person; breaking taboos and infringing on conventions appear to go hand in hand with the process. Her games with changing identities through various self-productions is calculated to shock, just as much as the shock itself is incomprehensible to her.

The two self-portraits in the evn collection are almost classic in terms of medium and artistic argumentation. Obviously sketched rapidly and directly, a painterly freedom and openness is reflected in the works which is in apparent contradiction to the repetition of the subject, the constant frontal nature and in their structural similarities. The inflexible gaze fixed on the viewer – the potential vis à vis – and the directed eyes defend against what Krystufek herself calls the “violent gaze”. Here the viewer’s gaze, which transforms the picture of the Other into an object, is returned by the artist who reverses the situation, and puts them in their place.

Brigitte Huck, 2005 (translation: Tim Sharp)