Anne Arndt – DEF GIRL

For the DEF GIRL exhibition, the artist Anne Arndt transformed the Prima Kunst Verein’s exhibition container, designed as a white cube, into a mobile, pink-coloured pop-up shop. But instead of do-it-yourself articles and accessories – as the abbreviation of Defence in the title suggests – the range consists of means of self-defence and the arming of women in contemporary glitter design, from pepper spray to stun guns. With the apparently authentic assortment and found footage video, the artist shifts her attention from the paths of female self-empowerment and feminist rebellion negotiated in the course of the #metoo movement into the perverted spheres of a new sales market for female self-armament that has made an impact in teleshopping and is often supported by the gun lobby. Anne Arndt interweaves strategies of appropriation with spaces and their coding: the container as a space of globalised transfer, privatised goods and data spaces that suggest protection from fearful spaces, the pop-up store as a shiny place of longing – and with her intervention opens up the exhibition space by interaction and negotiation.