Jürgenssen played an instrumental role in the international feminist avant–garde of the 1970s. In 1972, probing the clichés of gender representation, she took a picture of her own body in four poses to spell out the word frau (woman). In a signature self-portrait from 1976, titled Ich möchte hier raus! (I want out of here!), Jürgenssen, sporting a neat, white lace collar and brooch, presses her cheek and hands against the glass wall of a display case, suggesting in her entrapment the repressive codes of beauty and domesticity that women have often been subject to.
Gallery label from XL: 19 New Acquisitions in Photography, May 10, 2013–January 6, 2014.