With Myself by Annegret Soltau
On the occasion of Annegret Soltau’s long-overdue retrospective in Germany, Foam curator Claartje van Dijk reflects on a key work by the pioneering feminist artist, whose fearless exploration of the body, identity, and self-representation has long captivated her.
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Annegret Soltau is a pioneering feminist artist from Germany who has been active for more than five decades. With her unique artistic language, in which she combines various media and techniques, she has addressed themes of motherhood and pregnancy since the 1970s, when even many feminist artists rejected such themes for fear of underlining the traditional gender roles they were trying to break away from. In 2025, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt has presented the first, long overdue, retrospective of Soltau’s work. Uncensored provides a rich overview of her eclectic career, which encompasses photography, drawing, etching, needlework, and performance.
Soltau is known for her distinctive photo-drawings, etchings, stitchings and collages, which she first made in the 1970s. From 1975 onwards, she has conducted performances in which she wraps herself and others in black thread, imprinting a physical memory of the line onto the skin. Applying thread, needle and cloth onto photographic paper, she has created several series of multi-layered self-portraits through which she explores ideas of identity, physical boundaries and emotional constraints. The tactile nature of her work and her ongoing focus on female body politics resonate as powerfully today as in the 1970s.
About the author
CLAARTJE VAN DIJK is Senior Curator at Foam Photography Museum in Amsterdam where she curated various exhibitions, including The Underground Camera (2025), Felipe Romero Beltrán - Dialect (2024), Ara Guler - A Play of Light and Shadow (2023), Mous Lamrabat - Blessings from Mousganistan (2022) and Liz Johnson Artur - of life of love of sex of movement of hope (2021). Previously, van Dijk worked at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York in different capacities for twelve years. At ICP she conducted research on the museum’s collection and was a (co-)curator on numerous exhibitions, including Elliott Erwitt: Pittsburgh (2018) and Your Mirror: Portraits from the ICP Collection (2019), in collaboration with curator Erin Barnett. Van Dijk has performed mentorships for the School of Visual Arts (SVA) and was a nominator for a number of awards including The Lucie Foundation, BJP International Photography Award and Prix Pictet. Claartje van Dijk lives and works in Amsterdam.
Annegret Soltau, With Myself, 1975/2022, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, Photo: Rolf Gönner