If Hans Bellmer used geometric lines to break open a vortex of erotically charged horror or ambivalent arousal, Rita Ackermann uses her supremely skillful line to -almost close it again. And if Henry Darger’s Realms of the Unreal produces closure, the psychotic closure of a universe of absolute satisfaction — more precisely, a universe that forecloses desire — then the intimate, playful, yet still mysterious settings, postures, and groupings of Ackermann’s cat-eyed, curvy, girl / woman figures are inviting to the viewer, even if the invitation is marred — or perhaps made more tantalizing — by a hint of initiati knowledge not handed out to anyone not already party and partial to it. To change the scene, if the Neo-Expressionist stance of, for example, George Baselitz is fully charged with the gesture of the heroic artist-subject, then the early work of Ackermann, like Sameface or Teenaurora (both 1997), only charges itself with the burden of sincerity, for it uses the gesture of expression that nevertheless almost withdraws with its own execution.

Thanks to this kind of work, Ackermann has been highly influential as one of the central figures defining a moment that might be described as post-identity politics. However it is at the same time also beyond the irony which was, ironically, the reaction to identity politics in the art world. While artists like John Currin or Lisa Yusko-vage also revived the representation of the female body as an object of desire, they did so by drawing on the 1950s American pin-up tradition and on the fetishism of an academic practice. Ackermann also restored the desire of women, both objective and subjective, to the forefront of the practice of contemporary art, but more by following in the footsteps of literature, fairy tales, and mythology, as well as the hidden history of the siren’s call. To put it more precisely, she navigates in myriad ways — as performer, persona (or, rather, plural personae), as musician and collaborator, as individual and collective element, as painter and producer of installations, video, or wall-drawings — exactly within the split opened up by the objective and subjective reading of “x of woman.” It is here, then, where the lines almost closing off the erotic abject, the expressive gesture almost withholding itself, and the invitation which is almost withdrawn become situated. The “almost” in each case signifies the gap between being subject and being object, as it is negotiated by Ackermann through the museums of the world as much as through the contemporary life of signs and signifiers with which she incessantly seeks contact by adding to its content.

It follows that, in looking at the potentially confusing multiplicity of her endeavors and incarnations, it does not make sense to ask: “Will the real Rita Ackermann please stand up?” Rather, it is important to follow her trajectory as she stands up to her own Real, the Real of her situatedness and the conditions of her production. When, as with Toast for No Fear (2004) in Paris or with You Knocked the Salt Over (2004) in Salzburg, Ackermann invites us into a world, which should never be simply called “hers,” by way of an installation, we are confronted with strategies of readability and opacity that each inform each other, leaving us to respond, to show ourselves, to show responsibility. Again, the easy lines of the female figure seem to invite thoroughly, or even more, to let us nod in understanding, but we soon stop nodding. The shadowy emanations behind and next to the figure or figures seem to ask whose darkness is prevailing on this scene. To get next to the figures, we literally have to turn a corner only to witness baroque signifiers of vanitas, which are, uncannily, glad in vanity themselves. Elements like middle-class potted plants or an animal hide signifying both aristocratic privilege and cheesy, faux adaptations of it, add to the pieces of the puzzle. One might think, then, of Kathleen Hannah’s editorial for the fanzine Jigsaw: “We live in a world that tells us we must choose an identity, a career, a relationship and commit … to these situations … as if we know what’s gonna happen tomorrow, as if we aren’t ever gonna change, as if we don’t live in a world of constant flux …, which we do.” Ackermann shows us this world. Beyond irony, she opens up sincerity by means of playfulness. In doing so, she reminds herself and us, even seduces us into reminding ourselves, that the subjects of this world and its fantasies are nowhere to be found but with us.