Berliner Zeitung, German newspaper / digital and print
BILD, German newspaper /
digital
September 2022
Author: Anja Opitz
Falter, Austrian newspaper / digital and print
May 2022
Author: Martin Pesl
Jutarnji list, Croatian
newspaper
January 2019
"Artistic struggle against stereotypes inspired by women's centerfold imagery (...) The German artist Veronika Merklein is herself the protagonist of her work on prejudice against overweight people. (...) Veronika Merklein, artist of the younger generation is one of the most interesting unknown authors in the exhibition, focusing on her personal history, showing her work from the series "Life-Long Weight-Gaining." Wearing a sash with this very inscription over a very tight golden dress. As a performance the artist stood on a scale of chocolate for more than three hours until she finally slipped off of it (the documentation of this performance is shown on her website). On a daily basis she fights against prejudices and stereotypes towards fat people, such as eating unhealthily, eating only in fast food restaurants and how uncomfortable it is when other people judge you solely on the basis of your body, or the first impression."
NEUE - Vorarlberger Zeitung - Austrian newspaper
March 2018
Author: Lisa Kammann
"Performance. In the hallway, as soon as you enter the Kunstraum Bregenz, it's about a serious topic: The German artist Veronika Merklein deals with the subject of sexual abuse in the performance documentary "Ich did not say anything" in the form of a comic-like photo story. Further works by Merklein, whose central material is her own body, have a humorous aspect. In the performance "Die Hard", the stout artist - inspired by the action film with Bruce Willis - stages herself as a heroic action figure. The photograph "The Harder" shows her, lying on the ground, with a bullet wound on her stomach. From the wound, however, do not swell guts, but chips, the blood is ketchup."
Vorarlberger Nachrichten - Austrian
newspaper
March 2018
Author: Veronika Fehle
"Veronika Merklein from Germany is also in the same vein. Her body is her medium and canvas at the same time. She deals with consumer behavior, garnished with her femininity, revealing restrictive role models and crushing power structures. She converts that e.g. by strapping on oversized breasts made of paper mache, in order to distribute cream to the unsuspecting passers-by of German inner cities. But she also does that by becoming a woman in the role of male action heroes."
"The body fat of Veronika Merklein demonstratively floats with self-median ease. Three balloon letters ("FAT") protest against the discriminatory cult of slimness. (In a photo, this time unfortunately not live.)"
Fat Studies in Deutschland - Hohes Körpergewicht zwischen Diskriminierung und Anerkennung,
printed anthology
April 2017
Author: Kristina Kulicova, published by Lotte Rose and Friedrich Schorb
"Merklein's fat perspective is not just limited to the Fat Pig exhibition. Through her artistic work a central theme is the attempt to redefine the fat identity. As a fat person and through her works, she talks about her own experiences as well as about structural oppression of fat people (...) Her performances combine sensuality with politics, often with the help of humor and irony, they reveal struggles of people who have become victims of entrepreneurial, political and medical interventions because of their physical appearance. (...)
Unfortunately, too many, even art scientists, still claim that "Being Fat" is a purely individual and perceptional problem and accuse those artists of self-referentiality who use their own fat body as an artistic medium. This privatization of a social problem contributes to social inequality and marginalization of fat people. (...) Fat art is there to open the eyes to those who read fat bodies only as they were brought to them. And it is there to fill the hearts. It is a compensation for the lack of representation. It is a declaration of love, a protest, a call for mobilization and a therapy. It is personal and political, and it is fearless."
Press text of Milan Loviška :
"With stoic presence and careless pride Veronika Merklein embodies in rigorous movements the apparent aimlessness. In her solitary and decapitating contribution she aborts meanings, creates debts and gaps, and indulges herself and the audiences in the zones of discomfort while disregarding any desire for a profitable encounter. She devalues size and weight with lightness of her own and successfully markets anxiety as the next thing to disconnect from your inner self."
"First, you need to know about Veronika. I met Veronika at Abundia (amazing fat women's convention) while she was doing an artist residency in Chicago. She's a Vienna-based fat performance artist who kind of blows my mind on the regz. Like, for a show once, she stripped down and had her assistant paint her to look like a hollow chocolate version of herself. Then, she stood on a scale made of chocolate until it melted, while people watched and ate candy.
(...)
I loved the way it felt to be around them, to maneuver our bodies — someone else's boobs never far from my elbow or back. Occasionally, our bellies bumped into one another and then rebounded for just a second, like balloons. The familiar physics of fatness, multiplied by two or three. I felt like we spoke in shorthand, the language of shared experience.
Before this trip, when I thought “Vienna,” I didn't think “plus-size paradise.”
But holy shit.
I'm excited to see the global fat babe takeover is going so well."
Wie sind die Reaktionen auf deine Performances?
Meistens sehen die Leute es eher lustig. Wenn ich eine gewisse Brutalität in die Performance lege, dann sind die Leute schon auch stutzig, verärgert oder sogar verängstigt. Manche haben geweint, manche sind gelangweilt gegangen, manche haben enthusiastisch mitgemacht und gelacht. Es kommt auch immer wieder vor, dass Menschen versuchen, mich zu irritieren. Aber meistens finden die Leute es, wie gesagt, lustig.
„Willst du über Angst reden oder über Essen?“
"Veronika Merklein, die auf einem riesigen schwarzen Lederkissen lag, fragte „Willst du über Angst reden oder über Essen?“ Man bereute sofort, dass man sich mutig zeigen wollte und für Angst entschied, als sie sich eine rosa Maske über den Kopf zog und aus Marzipan eine Zunge formte, die an einen Krampus erinnerte. Richtig furchterregend wurde es dann aber doch nicht. Der Brief an ihren zukünftigen Ex-Liebhaber, den die Künstlerin anschließend vorlas, hatte wenig mit Angst zu tun. Wie die vielleicht erfundene, vielleicht echte Nicht-Liebesgeschiche weiterging, erfuhr man leider nicht. - Nur 15 Minuten blieben einem Besucher pro Begegnung. Die meisten sahen auch nur zwei Zimmer."
Als ich dich kennenlernte, roch es so nach – Potential
(When I got to know you, one could smell - Potential)
"(...) Es ist die ungewohnte, spritzig-rasante künstlerische Umsetzung. In ihr zeigt sich, dass die Regiehandschrift von Nkou stark von tänzerischen Elementen geprägt ist, die das Ensemble gewaltig herausfordern. Zum Zweiten sind es Textpassagen, die es in sich haben. (...) Geschrieben wurde der Text im Kollektiv von ihr, Lisza Loidl, Veronika Merklein, Iris Stromberger und Raimund Wallisch. Allerdings werden darin die Rollen, die zu Ibsens Zeiten noch männlich-weiblich klar verteilt waren, auf den Kopf gestellt. (...)"
" ( ...) It is the unusual, tangy rapid artistic realization. One can tell that the director 's signature of Nkou is strongly influenced by dance elements that challenge the ensemble enormous.
What's more, it's the text passages which pack the punch. (... ) It is written by Lisza Loidl, Veronika Merklein, Iris Stromberger and Raimund Wallisch. However, the roles of
Ibsen that were formerly defined as male-female are turned upside down in here (...). "
Louise & Maurice, American art & philosophy blog
December 2014
Author: Erinn M. Cox
Die Wienerin, Austrian life-style-magazine
September 2014
Author: Ruth Weismann
Pressetext für die Ausstellung "Life-Long Weight-Gaining"
May 2013
Author: Prof. Dr. Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein
As artist Veronika Merklein navigates between social, psychological, historical and philosophical systems of reference. After a long artistic (field) research Veronika Merklein navigates
precisely to the respective media coordinate. This precise landing succeeds because of the explosive force of her works, she is a champion in implementing formal aesthetics. These impressive
coordinates, their materialized marks: performances, texts, photographs, installations or objects, allow questions to the "human-being". In complicity with irony and humor the visually
pleasurable level still allows the statements to be urgent and effective. Within the solo-show „Life-Long Weight-Gaining“ at Neuer Kunstverein Wien the body as a socially morphed fact is the
center of her artistic involvement - a complex installative setting of performance, objects, photography and a video screening in public space.
---
Veronika Merklein navigiert als Künstlerin zwischen sozialen, psychologischen, geschichtlichen und philosophischen Referenzsystemen. Innerhalb ihrer künstlerischen Arbeitsweise steuert Veronika
Merklein nach längerer künstlerischer (Feld)forschung punktgenau die jeweilige mediale Koordinate an. Diese punktgenaue Landung gelingt deswegen, da die inhaltliche Brisanz der Arbeiten in ihrer
formal ästhetischen Umsetzung ihre Meisterin findet. Diese eindrücklichen Koordinaten, ihre materialisierten Markierungen, seien es Performances, Texte, Fotografien, Installationen oder Objekte,
lassen solchermaßen Fragen zum „Mensch sein“, auf einer visuell lustvollen Ebene zu, die in Komplizenschaft mit Ironie und Humor, keinen Zweifel an der Dringlichkeit und Wirksamkeit ihres
Statements zulassen.
In der Solo-Show „Life-Long Weight-Gaining“ im Neuen Kunstverein Wien steht der Körper als sozial verformte Tatsache im Zentrum ihrer künstlerischen Auseinandersetzung - in einem komplexen
installativen Setting aus Performance, Objekten, Fotografien und Screening im öffentlichen Raum.
Die Presse, Austrian newspaper
May 2013
Author: Almuth Spiegler
Plus Size Beauty, German plus-size blog
June 2014
Author: Denise Frank
Der Standard, Austrian newspaper
January 2012
Author: Andrea Heinz
