Ulli Lust. Woman as Human Being

In epic comic novels, Ulli Lust reflects on her own identity and the role of women. In her latest work, she pursues these themes in the context of human and natural history.

Austrian-native Ulli Lust achieved international recognition as a comic artist with her autobiographical comic novels. In Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life and How I Tried to Be a Good Person she tells compelling stories while also addressing questions of identity, gender roles, and the search for freedom independent of predetermined conventions. The illustrations complement the narratives. The respective storylines are depicted in highly varied, black-in-white illustrations with color accents. What seems overpowering looms large, thoughts and reflections are translated into images.

Her own lust for life and search for meaning as a woman is now succeeded by the big picture: Ulli Lust’s work on her essayistic comic Die Frau als Mensch (The Woman as Human Being) dates back to 1997. Since that time, she has collected material ranging from protohistory to evolutionary biology. Her illustrated excursions also take the artist to the Wachau, the Weinviertel, and the Czech Republic: the portrayal and development of women as human beings starts in very specific terms with the figure of the Venus of Willendorf and comparable finds. What world do they come from? What was the role of women then? What was the relationship between humans and (female) nature?

Ulli Lust was born in Vienna in 1967, and has lived in Berlin since 1995, where she studied at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin. She teaches drawing and comics as a professor at the university in Hanover. She has received multiple awards for her graphic novels, such as the Ignatz Award in 2013 and the Outstanding Artist Award in 2014.

Curators: Gottfried Gusenbauer and Anna Steinmair