Renate Bertlmann - amo ergo sum

Renate Bertlmann (*1943, lives and works in Vienna) studied painting, conservation and technology at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1964 to 1970. After completing her studies, a teaching position followed at the same institution in artistic techniques.

In her works Renate Bertlmann deals with role and body images. She provocatively and ironically questions gender contexts by discussing topics such as pornography, sexuality, violence and Eros. Her diverse practice spans painting, drawing, collage, photography, sculpture, performance and text. She first proclaimed her artistic maxim AMO ERGO SUM (I love, therefore I am) in 1978, which later evolved into the trilogical publication AMO ERGO SUM with its three parts: Pornography, Irony and Utopia.

2019 she was the first artist to perform in Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with a solo presentation.

2023 Renate Bertlmann had a retrospective over 55 years’ artistic work in Belvedere 21, in Vienna.

Her works are in international collections such as Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Belvedere 21, SAMMLUNG VERBUND, Mumok, Museum Ludwig and in private collections.

Grants

2017 2017 Grand Austrian State Prize
2007 City of Vienna Prize for Fine Arts
1989 City of Vienna Sponsorship Award for Fine Arts
1980 Z-Sponsorship Award, Bank Austria
1978 Theodor Körner Prize

Exhibitions

Solo (selection)

2026 In Visor, Gisela Clement Gallery, Bonn
2026 In Visor, Silvia Steinek Gallery, Vienna
2023 Fragile Obsessions, Belvedere 21, Vienna
2023 Renate Bertlmann Intimacy, Galerie Silvia Steinek, Vienna
2020 Renate Bertlmann, Carlone Contemporary, Upper Belvedere, Vienna
2019 Discordo Ergo Sum. Austrian Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Venice
2019 Here Rests My Tenderness, Landesgalerie Niederösterreich, Krems
2018 #It’s You Too, Galerie Steinek, Vienna
2017 Angst, Fotohof, Salzburg
2017 Sex Work: Feminist Art & Radical Politics, Richard Saltoun Gallery, Frieze, London
2017 Renate Bertlmann, Sotheby’s - SI2 London, London
2016 Renate Bertlmann. Amo Ergo Sum, Vertical Gallery of the VERBUND Collection, Vienna
2016 Renate Bertlmann. Two Climaxes, Richard Saltoun Gallery, London
2006 Top U29, Studio Tommaseo, Trieste
2002 Werkschau VII. Renate Bertlmann. Works 1976–2002, Fotogalerie Wien
1993 SCHNEEGESTÖBER-FLITTER(S)TÜRME, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna
1987 FEUER – ERDE – WASSER – LUFT, Galerie Apropos, Lucerne
1984 Dem Himmel nahe, Galerie Apropos, Lucerne
1982 Stimmen der Sehnsucht, Galerie Apropos, Lucerne
1982 Renate Bertlmann. Streicheleinheiten, Frauenmuseum, Bonn
1978 Bertlmann. Urvagina, Tommaseo Galleria d’Arte, Trieste
1977 Renate Bertlmann, Galerie Modern Art, Vienna
1976 Renate Bertlmann, Tommaseo Galleria d’Arte, Trieste
1973 Renate Bertlmann. Mixed Media, Künstlerhaus, Vienna

Group (selection)

2024 Bitch Magic, Alma Pearl Gallery, London
2024 Malevolence, Kings Walk, Gloucester
2024 20 Years of the VERBUND COLLECTION, Albertina, Vienna
2024 Free Time, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck
2024 Surrealism - Worlds in Dialogue, Kunsthalle Vogelmann, Heilbronn
2024 Horror Patriae, Styrian Autumn, Neue Galerie, Graz
2024 Traumatic Objects, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds
2023 Action, Gesture, Performance: Feminism, the Body and Abstraction, Whitechapel Gallery, London
2023 Flowers at the Fin de Siècle: Renate Bertlmann, Robert Lettner, Jimmy Wright, 1990-1998, Galerie Wonnerth-Dejaco, Vienna
2023 Art Treasures from the Baroque to the Present, Landesgalerie Niederösterreich, Krems
2023 Public Matters, Contemporary Art in the Belvedere Garden, Upper Belvedere, Vienna
2023 «E.R.O.S.» (1959). "History of a Surrealist Exhibition Through the Daniel Cordier Collection," The Abattoirs, Museum – Frac Occitanie Toulouse, Toulouse
2023 Being Mortal, Dom Museum Vienna
2023 The 2000s: Bye-bye Confidence, Wien Museum MUSA, Vienna
2022 A Shop Is a Shop Is a Shop, Kunsthalle Vienna
2022 In the Company of, Eden Eden (Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi), Berlin
2022 Sensitive Content, Unit London
2022 The Animal Within You - Creatures In (and Outside) the Mumok Collection, Mumok, Vienna
2022 FLOWERS! - Flowers in the Art of the 20th and 21st Century, Museum Ostwall, Dortmund
2022 FEMINIST AVANT-GARDE, Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, Novi Sad, Serbia
2022 Rendezvous With the collection. Art from 1960 to the present, Landesgalerie Niederösterreich, Krems
2022 that other world, the world of the teapot. tenderness, a model, Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover
2022 FEMINIST AVANT-GARDE, Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles Photographic Festival, Arles
2021 GLASSTRESS BOCA RATON 2021, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, FL
2021 WHEN GESTURE BECOMES EVENT, Muzej in galerije mesta Ljubljane, Ljubljana
2021 Herz aller liebst, Volkskunde Museum, Monatsschlössl Hellbrunn, Salzburg
2021 Glasstress. Window to the Future, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
2021 Avant-garde and the Present, The Belvedere Collection, Belvedere 21, Vienna
2021 On Hannah Arendt: The Crisis in Culture, Richard Saltoun Gallery, London
2021 Female Sensibility: Feminist Avant-Garde from the Verbund Collection, Lentos Museum, Linz
2020 The Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s – Works from the Verbund Collection, Vienna, ICP – International Center of Photography, New York
2020 BODILY OBJECTS, Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh
2020 WHEN GESTURE BECOMES EVENT, Künstlerhaus, Vienna
2020 The Beginning. Austrian Art 1945–1980, Albertina Modern, Vienna
2020 FEMINIST AVANT-GARDE MADE IN AUSTRIA, Vertical Gallery of the VERBUND Collection, Vienna
2019 House of the Sleeping Beauties, Sotheby’s - SI2 London, London
2018 DRAG: Self-portraits and Body Politics, Hayward Gallery, South Bank Centre, London
2018 The 1990s. Act 2: Subversive Imaginations, Vienna Museum MUSA
2018 THE FEMINIST AVANT-GARDE OF THE 1970s – Works from the VERBUND Collection, Vienna, Stavanger Art Museum, Stavanger, Norway The Brno House of Arts, Brno, Czech Republic
2018 Women Look at Women, Richard Saltoun Gallery, London
2017 WOMAN. Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s, VERBUND Collection, mumok, Vienna
2017 Pro(s)thesis, Academy of Fine Arts
2017 Corpo a Corpo - Body to Body, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome
2016 Prière de toucher – The Sense of Touch in Art, Museum Tinguely, Basel
2015 Feminist Avant-Garde. Art of the 1970s from the VERBUND Collection, Vienna, Hamburger Kunsthalle
2015 The EY Exhibition. The World Goes Pop, Tate Modern, London
2015 Bad Mothers. Between Power and Crisis, Lentos Art Museum, Linz
2015 VIVACE!, Galerie Steinek, Vienna
2015 Self-Timer Stories, Museum of Contemporary Art of Castile and León
2014 WOMAN. The Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s, VERBUND Collection, BOZAR, Brussels
2014 Self-Timer Stories, Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Museum of Modern Art, Salzburg
2014 Burning Down the House, 10th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea
2014 Actionists, Kunsthalle Krems, Forum Frohner, Krems
2013 Mujer. The Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s. Works from the VERBUND Collection, Vienna, Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid
2012 Me, Myself & Them. Group exhibition on the theme of self-portraiture, Künstlerhaus, Vienna
2010 Donna: Avanguardia Femminista Negli Anni ’70, dalla SAMMLUNG VERBUND di Vienna, Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna, Rome, Italy
2010 I is another, Landesmuseum Niederösterreich, St. Pölten
2009 VIDEORAMA. Art clips from Austria, Kunsthalle Wien
2008 MATRIX. Genders/Relationships/Revisions, MUSA, Vienna
2003 Women Artists. Positions 1945 to the present. Mimosas, Roses, Autumn Crocuses, Kunsthalle Krems
2003 Mothers of Invention – Where is performance coming from? Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation, Vienna
2002 Let’s twist again. What you can’t think, you should dance, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna
1986 Continuum. Existing – Living – Present, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich
1985 Art with a Mind of Its Own. Contemporary Art by Women, Museum of the 20th Century, Vienna
1984 “1984” Orwell and the Present. Exhibition of the Vienna Festival, Museum of the 20th Century, Vienna
1983 Other Avant-Garde, Festival, Brucknerhaus Linz
1978 Art-Museum of Money, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
1978 Performance Art, Austrian Art Association, Vienna
1978 Feminist Art International. Performances/Video/Film/Documentary, Stichting 'de Appel', Amsterdam
1977 La Performance Oggi. Settimana internazionale della performance, Galleria comunale d’arte moderna di Bologna, Bologna
1975 MAGNA Feminism. Art and Creativity, Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna