"bibibi" By Maria Petschnig

bibibi
 2-edition mint
 

 Here Maria Petschnig, the artist, the woman in the bedroom, looks at herself, and in doing so shows us not only what she sees, but how she sees it.
 If there is an eroticism in this photo, it is not from the hint of bondage her garments suggest, but from the intimacy and intensity of her gaze.
 

 This is how many women see themselves, scrutinizing a wrinkle or a mole, trying to squeeze and shape their bodies in a dressing room, so they might emerge perfect, put-together, and whole. But Petschnig seeks something other than a flattering distortion. With her camera, and with her clothes, she transforms her body not for the sake of others, but for herself. She stays within her room, adorning and pinching her body so that she can regard it. In this private space, her body is matter, unfamiliar.
 

 Petschnig provides no recognizable image of a “woman” to relieve us. Instead she leaves us to imagine for ourselves the rest of her: the way she looks out there, beyond the bedroom.