ACRYL – A social cultural network

ACRYL was founded in 2009 by a group of female artists: Angelika Thon, Cym,
Renate Krammer and Linda Maria Schwarz.
The name „ACRYL“ consists of the initials of the first name of the association foundres (Angelika, Cym, Renate, Linda). The letter Y is for guests who can be both women and men. The ACRYL Notions defines a series of chemicals derived from the Latin word „acer“, sharp, or from the Greek „akros“, sharp edge, because of the strong smell of acrylic acid. The chemical symbol is found in the logo of the ACRYL association.

The ACRYL group represents a collection of artists whose aims are primarily the presentation of female artists and women in general in rural Styria, a federal state of Austria. The group interconnects women in the region and outside the region and promotes artistic contracts at national and international level. In addition to the artistic contributions, women from arts, politics and economy are invited to discuss important themes and to give participants and opportunity to create interdisciplinary contacts.

ACRYL`s festivals, called „museum f r a u e n CIRCUS“ or „women`s circus museum“, are a stage for contemporary art by women and take place on different locations. Containers filled with works of art are transported to cultural places. In this way cultural contacts are established and local infrastructures are used.
The concept of the founders is to build a temporary museum for women`s art.

ACRYL´s „museum f r a u e n CIRCUS“ or „women`s circus museum “ hikes every year from region to region in Styria.

Phase_01 of ACRYL started in 2010 with its Primrose Art Festival in Gleisdorf, east Styria.
One art container was at the „Zirkuswiese“ and in addition to the circus-installation the work of international female artists was exhibited at different locations in the city.

In 2011 phase_02 was presented at the castle Hainfeld, which known as at the largest water castle in Styria, 50 km away from the phase 01 location. We duplicated the art containers with their circus-installation and showed the art inside in monumental halls in the castle.

2012 with phase_03 taking place in Pavelhaus in Laafeld in the south of Styria, near the Slovenian border. A container was used for a social sculpture created by Linda Maria Schwarz to present statements from women of art and culture from the USA, Mexico, Sweden, the Netherlands, Romania, Austria, Italy and Palestine. A second container dealt with the issue of Environment and Ecology in Art and a third with Gender Mainstreaming.
Radio AGORA – a non commercial (mainly Slovenian spoken) radio station located in the southern state of Carinthia, broadcast interviews with our Slovenian artists and the founders of the festival.

2013 the women`s circus musuem moved to Hartberg in Styria with its phase_04.
This time we had to lift the art containers by a tower crane inside the park of the castle of the city. New issues like „European and international matters“ and „Institutions and Visions“ were picked out as themes.
The16 artists from Germany, the USA, Slovenia and Austria showed their work at the new building for contemporary art in the museum of the city in a very historical house built in 1412.

In 2014 with “phase 05” the „museum f r a u e n CIRCUS“ happened in Fürstenfeld, called the ‚City of Thermic Springs‘ with the Hungarian border only 20 km away.
Helped by excellent and enthusiastic teamwork with the Culture Department, we set up the circus-installation in sight of the old, former fortress wall of Fürstenfeld.
Regional and Hungarian as well as international artists presented their work in the gallery of the historical townhall. We finished our successful festival with an interesting film presentation by an artist from Japan in the „Grabher-Haus“, a culture centre and former cinema.

Our festival will appear with brilliant presentations in 2015 with „phase 06“ in Weiz, the largest town in the rural region of East-Styria. It is called an ‚industrial town‘ on account of diverse industrial concerns and it has a well known exhibition centre with modern architecture in the historic centre of the city. All our regional and international artists who have participated since the beginning will have the opportunity to show their current work in the ‚Kunsthaus Weiz‘ and the circus-installation will be set up around it.

On the visibleness of women and special female artists, meanwhile, we believe it is improving and there has been a significant change since we started in 2009.
A lot of people find it very difficult to believe that women today still need to fight for their equal rights. The opinion of some is that women sometimes fight too much and it becomes annoying. However, if you look back at the past, women all over the world have benefitted a lot from this and this continues to the present day.