Im Wiener Prater

Im Wiener Prater

Already the title leads one astray: Friedl vom Gröller´s film Im Wiener Prater is, namely, not about the amusement park that one normally associates with this name. The spectacle in Friedl vom Gröller´s film takes place in a much more basic sense. Right at the start, we see a camera tripod left standing, and instead, the filmmaker has set off—as we soon find out—to track down a woman (the artist Martina L.). Carefully, concealed—with a thoroughly male-coded gaze—she approaches the unsuspecting woman who is out taking a walk. What we are then shown, a close-up of a woman urinating, activates a quasi-childish delight in investigating taboos: Evident here are both a conscious reference to Viennese Actionism and the counterpart to one of Friedl vom Gröller´s early films, Boston Steamer (2009), with the artists´ group Gelatin, about the process of anal excretion. Yet rather than the close-ups of anatomical details and the associated sexualization, what is actually `unsettling´ about Im Wiener Prater is the gaze forced upon the viewer: this woman looks at us, questioning and self-confidently—now that´s pure cinema of attraction.

(Naoko Kaltschmidt)

Translation: Lisa Rosenblatt