Jakob Lena Knebl (born 1970 in Baden, Austria) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Although her artistic approach is very heterogeneous, especially in the use of different kind of medias, her main focus concerns the entanglement and assemblage of various art forms.
At first Knebl studied fashion, but as the artist became aware of the particular norms, methods and regulations she wanted to take a critical view of this set of rules, to go one step further and to combine the critical approach in the contemporary art system with fashion. The titel of this photograph "Chesterfield" gives a reference to a very special sofa type originally manufactures in England. By taking over the structure of this furniture onto the human body, escpecially on the body of the artist herself, she becomes not only an art piece, but playing with gender and differsity subjects, the artist refers in a sublime way to be trapped and modelled in body norms without any escape. On the other side this sofa is mainly used in men clubs and Knebl questions in very extreme bodily display the role of women as a kind of comfort zone for men amenities.
The artist opens spaces of desire, where body, object and image are staged to form an alternative reference system in which she merges diverse subject areas and atesthetics. With this methods the artist questions critically the construction of identity, weather it refers to gender or social issues. The visualization of different discourses, like body norms, taboos, culture as a process of copying or assimiliaton, are the foundation of her artistic approach.
