Christine Frisinghelli

Cultural work as a mediation achievement

Christine Frisinghelli’s work can be seen as representative of the commitment and growing presence of women in the arts and culture sector. One of her greatest achievements was establishing photography as a medium at a time when it was only marginally recognised in the contemporary art world. E.g. from 1976 onwards, Frisinghelli worked with Manfred Willmann to establish the photography programme of the artists’ association Forum Stadtpark. Motivated by an interest in photography against the backdrop of its position in the context of theoretical, historical and social debates, they initiated the first “Symposium on Photography” there in 1979. This was followed by numerous others until 1997, at which national and international photographers gathered annually in Graz and provided important impetus not only for the German-speaking photography scene in their discussions. The urgency of this exchange was reinforced by the magazine Camera Austria International, founded in 1980 and published quarterly ever since, whose editor-in-chief was Christine Frisinghelli until 2010.

In 1996, she took over directorship of the steirischer herbst festival, a position she held until 1999. She was thus the first female artistic director in Graz and brought her belief that art should not be viewed in isolation from its cultural, political, social and economic context to the festival. Accordingly, Frisinghelli also subjected the institution of the festival as an event that implements content-related settings in a temporally and geographically concentrated form to critical reflection. Hereby, particular attention was paid to emphasising the festival as a place of production and questioning hegemonic, Western-influenced concepts of art. Rather, she advocated raising awareness of the structures and conditions in which art is produced and presented, as well as openness towards cultural diversity.