IN CONVERSATION WITH GUDRUN BARTENBERGER-GEYER

| By Barbara Pavan |

Gudrun Bartenberger-Geyer (Linz, Austria, 1969) has always intertwined her life with the languages of textiles, fashion, and the visual arts. After an initial education in Textile and Decorative Design in her hometown, she moved to Vienna, where she pursued a path that alternated between the academic study of art history and Italian at the University of Vienna and a more concrete and experimental practice in the field of Fashion and Clothing Technology, culminating in a Master Class for Dressmaking. This constant dialogue between theoretical research and artisanal know-how became the guiding thread of her poetics. In 2005 she further enriched her background with a specialization in Culture and Event Management at the same university, opening new perspectives for her artistic activity.

Since 2007 she has worked as an artist and textile designer, combining her personal production with an intense teaching activity through workshops also in institutional contexts. Starting in 2011 her presence on the international exhibition scene has become increasingly visible: she has taken part in solo and group exhibitions, competitions, and curatorial projects both in Austria and abroad, carrying forward a body of work that moves between technical rigor and creative freedom. Her sensitivity to material and form also finds a natural extension in the creation of costumes for theater and performance, where fabrics become living bodies in motion.

Her projects have received significant recognition: from the Vienna Haute Couture Awards in 1998, which honored her seasonal collections, to the Award of M. A. Bazovský Gallery in Trenčín in 2012, and the Tradition in Technique Award of the Surface Design Association in 2016. Today her works are part of prestigious collections, including the Grassimuseum of Applied Art in Leipzig, confirming the strength and vitality of a path that continues to intertwine tradition and experimentation—a path she recounts in the following interview she granted me for TXtileZine.

Let’s start from the beginning: what was your educational path, and what led you to textile art as a form of expression? Was there a defining moment or a key work that marked this direction? You have chosen a medium—fibres and textile materials—that is often associated with craft or domesticity. What attracted you to these materials, and what do they represent for you in the context of contemporary art? And how has your artistic research evolved over time? Have there been turning points or phases that you now consider decisive?

For me there has never been this one defining moment that led me to textiles – I was always surrounded by textile materials and tools; my mother was a teacher of textile crafts, and my grandmother was a tailor. Through her work, my grandmother helped to get the family through the Second World War and, with the sewing machine on the cart, also through the escape. My mother taught all my life – even at a time when it was still common for women to stay at home. She researched and revived old textile techniques. Both women earned their own living in different ways but through textile work – and thus I never developed the limiting view, that reduces textiles to domesticity.

Even now, I consider it difficult to accept that this traditional association of textiles as a domestic craft – often linked to women and gender issues – still persists and is habitually projected onto every textile work. More than in any other medium, the sculptural or painterly statement, which also plays a major role in my work, is often obscured in the reception by the textile nature of the work. Yet textiles, like any other genre, have so many aspects.

My great passion for textiles arises from the characteristics of the material – its softness, its flexibility, its malleability. I like that it is not dimensionally stable by its very nature, so that once a form is created, it can be recreated similarly but never exactly the same. In addition, there are the various processing and manufacturing possibilities, which can often be applied to non-classical textile materials as well. And precisely in this variable relationship between the material, its method of production, and the resulting malleability lies enormous sculptural potential. 

from the series circlewear – to wear one circle – to wear two circles | 2014 for the felt space solo in Trencin . SK | 2015 Fibre Art Triennial Riga | 2016 Awarded at the International Exhibition in Print of the Surface Design Asociation | photos by Marlene Rahmann | different types of wool, silk, fiber-dyed, felted by hand – supported by video and/or slide projection – exploration of form, space, transformation – it is no longer the form that shapes the content, the content shapes the form.

During five years of studies in textile and decorative design and further intensive engagement and collaboration with other artists, I received in-depth knowledge in varying handicraft techniques, particularly in textiles, and developed a deep understanding of the interplay between materials and production methods. This base offers an enormous pool of creative possibilities.

Nevertheless, I like to use techniques that do not require any tool between myself and the work. This makes the process more direct, physical, and intimate, allowing my own energy to flow into the objects. For my felt works, I liked to use the phrase: “Delivering the warmth of the hands, felting soul into textile creation.”

However, it took me some time to find my path with the textile. I initially started with fashion, attending a college for fashion and clothing technology, later completing a master class in fashion design.

Already during my education, I realized that everyday fashion was not my goal – perhaps haute couture, because it allowed for more creativity, and I was always bothered by the short-lived nature of fashion. So, I began offering haute couture under an independent label; but even here, it soon became apparent that my enthusiasm was not in dressing bodies, but increasingly in creating wearable objects that are performed by bodies.

To completely detach myself from fashion, I stopped sewing the pieces and began to build them fiber by fiber, using techniques such as felting, to create seamless, three-dimensional objects. This changed my perspective entirely. The wearability of the pieces had completely lost its relevance. 

from the series circlewear – segmentshifting 2012 until now exhibited several times | photo by Marlene Rahmann | wool, silk, yak,supportable by light-box-pixtures (2014 at the felt space solo) | the shift of just one segment opens up new possibilities; a reflection on the dissolution of established forms…

Fibers and the textile became a sculptural medium. Even though the human body continues to play a role, the space that lies between the body and the object gained significance. In this new field of tension between body and object, an energy could unfold that allowed the full exploitation of the non-form-stable textile object. With every movement of the body, the piece changed, up to complete abstraction. This constantly changing sculpture, in turn, altered its relationship to the surrounding space through shifts in form, dimension, and position.

This spatial experience – both of the body within the performed object and of the object within space – projects my general interest in human action and its impact on the environment. Either in an immediate spatial, purely physical sense or in relation to the bigger picture – above all the resulting interactions between people, societies and their natural environment.

In order to make my thoughts accessible, performative interactions with the sculptures were documented photographically or on film for exhibitions and presented by using slide or video projections.

Later, I built sculptures focusing on shifting proportions to allude to imbalances. For example, I enlarged the single-celled organisms foraminifera to the point that they could be inhabited by humans, drawing attention to the invisible microcosm of the ocean, which has been completely thrown out of balance due to human activity. I presented this work – I called it Nodifera – photographically in the style of Karl Blossfeldt’s plant photography – so all proportions were blurred, and only on closer inspection could one recognize the actual size and the human inside the object.

Anthozoa has a similar structure, finished with a video project.

Nodifera 2021 | Textile Art of Today – Meulensteen Art Museum Bratislava | photos by Theo Bartenberger | analogue photography with medium format camera, c-prints in wooden frames,objects: steel band, net, wool felted by hand in colored layers, cut, twisted and knotted | Structured like a research project, Nodifera focuses on the invisible unbalanced microcosm of the ocean due to human activities. Foraminifera cells are the base of the research project. The enormous proportions allude to the invasive intervention of humans.

Anthozoa – series 2018 | for the multiples – solo in the Galerie Göttlicher . Krems . A | 2019 one Anthozoa – rock pair was a finalist at the WOW show at New Zealand | wool, silk, paper, felted by hand, cut; steel bandsupported by video of a performance at the exhibition | Anthozoa is a further concerned tribute to the underwater world | two objects of the series are part of the collection of the Grassimuseum of Applied Art, Leipzig, Germany | one pair was a finalist at the WOW show at New Zealand

There is also a group of works in which I consciously play with the absence of the body – for example, “sheep’s wedding”, “AG – home and habitat”, or “as if nothing ever happened”. Instead of showing the body, it is highlighted in a way that reflects its presence or absence and invites deeper engagement with it.

AG – home and habitat | 2021 International Triennial of Tapestry, Central Textile Museum Łódź, PL | 2025 will be part of the TextileArt Triennial in Slovakia upcoming autumn | photos by Theo Bartenberger | collected garments, fabrics, lace, wool, tent poles | cut apart, assembled by sewing, felting; embroidered | The dissolution of the parental home, coinciding with increasing streams of refugees, triggered a reflection on the loss of the familiar, of dwelling and of being at home.The tent-dress consists of old clothes from family and friends, supplemented by felted reconstructions from my mother’s textile collection. The garments are mainly disassembled and reassembled – as a reference to something that has fallen apart. AG can be seen as a tent-like dwelling with associations to scenes of a world in crisis; it is used where people have to live on the run. The interior offers protection from this outside world, speaks of being at home again.If the work is considered as an opulent dress, the opening of the skirt, the view into the interior – “under the skirt” – exposes an encroachment – a threat, tells of loss.

You have also worked in international contexts. What kind of dialogue have you found between your practice and other cultures or artistic sensibilities?

To answer the question about international contexts, I would like to briefly talk about The Caged Body, a sculpture I created in 2016 for a group exhibition in the United States. The work was accompanied by a video in which a performer interacted with this cage-like rib sculpture, expressing my perception of the overwhelming pressure of modern life – constant performance demands, stress, and the rapid pace of our times. At that moment, this felt like a global issue; many of the other European participants addressed similar themes. The American participants, on the other hand focused strongly on the discrimination of Black people.

This experience revealed to me how limited our perspectives are, how – despite the globalization of knowledge exchange – our perception remains geographically and culturally shaped and influenced, and how this also changes proportionalities. That`s why I consider international exhibitions and exchange so important: they reveal the viewpoints of others within their own current environments and make them comprehensible.

It reminds us to look and listen carefully in order to be able to see and understand things from someone else’s perspective. Anything else could cause fear of the unknown and would lead to the fragmentation and isolation of societies.

Your works seem to carry a strong ethical and philosophical dimension. What themes are closest to your heart, and how do they manifest in your artistic practice?  

Is there a common thread — literal or metaphorical — that runs through your body of work?

What unites all my works is a reflection on how I, as a human being, perceive and question the world around me. Humanistic concerns intuitively form the core of my artistic practice. It is about how people influence their environment and how these influences, in turn, shape human life and behavior.

I am fascinated by the relationship between fibers and the body, fibers and the world, and by the fragility of all these interwoven structures. Regarding the felt-works a statement by Robert Morris comes to mind: “Felt has anatomical associations,” said Morris, “it relates to the body—it’s skinlike.”

Aesthetically, I draw deeply from Japanese design philosophies – their sensitivity to emptiness and space, their reverence for the fragile duality of life and transience, and their celebration of the beauty of impermanence. My respect for materials and my desire to avoid useless excess resonate with this way of thinking.

The concept of transformation is central to my work and – thanks to the nature of textiles, secures in many of my pieces. – I like to create things in a way that enables them to change – works that can be reimagined, rearranged, and seen from different perspectives. This sense of openness also aligns with my ambition to reusability.

How does a work come to life? Could you walk us through your creative process, from the first intuition to the final realization?

Most of my body-related mutable sculptures are built fiber by fiber, felted by hand, which allows me to shape a three-dimensional form while creating its surface at the same time.

The process of developing these works is highly conceptual and often requires a lot of time. After a period of thinking I begin with small models, initially in paper, to examine different possibilities for transformation, followed by producing fabric samples to find the right balance between material and malleability and to calculate the shrinkage factor – a crucial element in felting. 

Only when I begin laying the fibers a moment free of rational control emerges – a moment where the energy of the present becomes central. That`s why the appearance and structure of the work’s surface can never be repeated.

After the pieces have been fully formed, the performative act follows; and only after having documented this photographically or on film these changeable sculptures feel complete to me.

These fiber sculptures are mainly based on wool and other natural fibers – and, to relate to the question, yes, organic materials are essential to me because they decompose completely. Perhaps this suggests a different awareness of the value of things in the context of sustainability. And there is again this attraction that lies in the tension of the ephemeral. 

In my more recent works, I often use found objects – materials that catch my attention during walks in nature or in everyday life and that I want to draw attention to. In this way I also discovered the intestines, a by-product of the meat industry.

Your modular installation Gut Feeling was recently exhibited at CasermArcheologica in Italy. It brings together and articulates multiple reflections. Can you tell us more about this work and how it came into being?

Facing worldwide political and ecological developments of the recent years and their severity, my enthusiasm for continuing my former way of working has faded.

Driven by a sense of universal responsibility to encourage a conscious and efficient use of natural resources and to break away from entrenched economic habits, I imposed an experiment upon myself: to return to point zero, dissolving all my established artistic and technical approaches.

But to truly begin from zero, I needed a new impulse – a technique or material that not only made sense to me but also showed resistance. This material had to be organic, not human-made, and, unlike before, it was to determine not only the action but also the final composition.

I came across a material – a truly raw substance – that fascinated me for many reasons: intestines, a by-product of the meat industry. On one hand, working with animal material evokes reflection on the beauty of life and its closeness to death, as it exposes the inner body to the viewer’s gaze.

At the same time, transforming a perishable by-product of the meat industry into something sublimely delicate and fragile intrigued me deeply. The intestine – which can be up to nine meters long – is both repulsive and fascinating. Polarizing in its very function, it once served digestion within the body, only to become, later, a casing for food, partially digested itself.

The fact that the gut, with its millions of nerve cells, is directly connected to the brain urged me toward a careful, almost reverent approach, strengthening my impulse to let the material guide me. This led me to explore traditional methods of processing animal products, such as tanning.

Inspired by the analogy between the tanned material and dried straw or plant-stalks, the muscular tubes were woven and knotted, subjecting them to a textile transformation and resulting in organic sculptures that seemed to grow naturally.

Displayed on old butcher’s hooks – a reference to the material’s origin – the increasing quantity of processed intestines pointed to the ever-growing consumption of meat. Suspended in space, these sculptural weavings play with a sense of weightlessness, evoking a gesture of fragility and inviting contemplation of nature and its transience.

How do you see the role of the textile artist today, in a world marked by environmental, social, and identity crises? Can art still “mend” or transform?

I`m not sure whether it is art’s task to heal, but I believe it possesses profound means of drawing us to look and listen more closely. And that, I think, is exactly what we as humans and as artists must do – we should not turn away but look, feel, and listen carefully to what is happening. And there are a lot of things happening to which we must respond.

As many contemporary thinkers, writers, and intellectuals emphasize, we must resist – in every way we can. We must write, debate, argue, and reconcile…

Susan Sontag argued that art exists to expand our perception of the world and sharpen our sensitivities. She saw art as a medium that not only provokes thought but stirs emotion and changes the way we see. She emphasized the importance of sensory experience because it makes us more receptive to the nuances and subtleties of the world.

In this sense, textiles – with all their tactile possibilities – seem predestined for such a purpose.