Annegret Soltau is a German visual artist, born in Lüneburg, Germany. Her work marks a fundamental reference point in the art of the 1970s and 1980s. Photomontages of her own body and face sewn over or collaged with black thread are the most well-known works of the German artist.
Since 1973 she has freelanced, first in the sphere of painting and graphic art, then from 1975 actions and first photography and videoworks. In Soltau’s own words “Permanente Demonstration“ is “an attempt to trigger states of consciousness through realization of an image in real life, i.e. make an image physically. The line, becomes a realized line, the person is part of the picture. Line and person are not two opposite things but one reality”. In "Selbst" the artist ties up her face with tight threads of black silk, just like a cocoon, of which she makes a photographic record that is subsequently stitched by following a geometric pattern that resembles a sign. The result is a self-harming self-portrait, an effigy that has been prevented, inhibited, forced into silence. Annegret Soltau writes her story as a woman on the blank page of her face; it is a history of conflict, impulsive reactions to the family environment, to the marginal position of women in the social context, to gender pressures and discrimination. As it cuts into the sensitive skin of her face, the thread distorts its shape but also enhances its beauty. In her Video-Performances and Phototableaus she wanted to make intimate processes like sexuality, pregnancy, birth, abortion, sickness and violence to become subjects of the arts. From 1977 to 1980 she dealt with her pregnancies and the birth of her two children. In the video "being pregnant" she observed her own body over the whole time period of nine months. She pointed out physical changes as well as psychological ones. The artist called the phases: panic, doubt, hope, loneliness, separation, oppression, reminiscence, oration, being-born. She asked herself the question: how can I combine creativity and motherhood without losing myself as my own person. The most complex and elaborate series of works is "generativ", where she composes photographs of the naked bodies of her "female chain": her grandmother, her mother, her daughter and herself. "Generativ" shows the whole span of bodily change between young and old, between the fading body of age and the emerging body in puberty. "My main interest is the integration of body process in my work, in order to connect body and spirit as equal parts" Over the years, her face has transformed metaphorically into letters, numbers, data and paper documents.
Honours
In 1982 she was awarded a working scholarship by the Arts Society of Bonn, in 1986/87 the Villa Massimo prize in Rome in Italy, in 1998 the Maria Sybilla Merian Prize "Vita" Annegret Soltau and in 2000 the Wilhelm-Loth-prize of the City ofDarmstadt, where she is living.
