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15/10/2014

Alternativa 2014

Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk

Curator: Aneta Szyłak

Alter­na­tiva 2014 is proud to pre­sent Abs­tract – the first solo exhi­bi­tion in Poland of the out­stan­ding Ger­man artist, the­ore­ti­cian and docu­men­tary essay­ist Hito Stey­erl. She is a key figure of con­tem­po­rary art and film, one who views the image-​​making pro­cess from femi­nist, cri­ti­cal and poli­ti­cal perspectives.

Her main area of inte­rest is in media ana­ly­sis: a re-​​definition of meanings in shi­fting ima­ges. Her work outli­nes the rela­tion­ship between the flow of capi­tal and the value of art, between finan­cial and sym­bo­lic capi­tals, between war and aesthe­tics. The artist draws our atten­tion not so much to things that we are able to see but to those, which we do not see, which are hid­den before our very eyes because of the seduc­tive power of representation.

Here she has again, tur­ned her atten­tion to the hid­den layer of an image –the phy­si­cally exi­stence of a wall struc­ture and pic­ture as mat­ter. Does a pic­ture have a body? What do we learn from an image, which is blur­red, obli­te­ra­ted, badly made — rejec­ted? The artist cha­ses her own medium of film as a tool for mani­pu­la­ting the vie­wer and infor­ma­tion. She is also inte­re­sted in the ways in which the human body enco­des and records beha­vio­urs and pro­ce­du­res; the body, as a recor­ding and retrie­ving tool. Simul­ta­ne­ously, Stey­erl explo­res her own history as a per­son whose life with the camera is a con­ti­nual return to the questions: What does it mean to make an image of some­one, to film them, to cre­ate rela­tion­ships thro­ugh recor­ding? What does it mean to be in a pic­ture and repre­sent one­self as the per­son who not only wat­ches but is also being wat­ched all the time.

Stey­erl is con­ti­nu­ally asking the question: what does it mean to be visi­ble or invi­si­ble in a time of recor­ding, scan­ning and surve­il­lance, when all of our moves and acti­vi­ties are being docu­men­ted and sys­te­ma­ti­cally used, often without our know­ledge and/​or per­mis­sion, in a mili­ta­ri­sed and profit-​​oriented reality. We can see a col­lage of various tech­no­lo­gi­cal lan­gu­ages in her works, along with aesthe­tics of recor­ding and per­su­asion, entan­gling us thro­ugh a con­ti­nual flow of capi­ta­li­sed infor­ma­tion. The artist sket­ches the rela­tion­ship between seemin­gly dispa­rate doma­ins of know­ledge; she can pre­ci­sely, scru­pu­lo­usly and pain­fully mimic various forms of communication.

Her exhi­bi­tion will be unve­iled as the final show­piece of Alter­na­tiva 2014: The Gar­den of Eve­ry­day Errors shows her latest works, among which are pie­ces such as: Liqu­idity Inc., Novem­ber, Adorno’s Grey, How Not to be Seen, Guards and Is the Museum a Bat­tle­field? and impor­tant older work such as Lovely Andrea.

The Ber­lin — based artist has par­ti­ci­pa­ted in a num­ber of leading exhi­bi­tions of con­tem­po­rary art, such as: Docu­menta, Mani­fe­sta, as well as Bien­nials in Venice, Taipei, Istan­bul and Gwan­gju. Her solo exhi­bi­tions have been hosted by art insti­tu­tions, such as: the Art Insti­tute in Chi­cago, the Museum of Con­tem­po­rary Art in San Diego, the Van Abbe Museum in Ein­dho­ven, the ICA in Lon­don and many others. She com­ple­ted her film stu­dies in Munich and Tokyo, and ear­ned her PhD at the Aca­demy of Fine Arts in Vienna. She is a pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­sity of Art (UDK) in Ber­lin and has also lec­tu­red at Gold­smi­ths and the Cen­tre for Cura­to­rial Stu­dies at Bard Col­lege. Stey­erl con­tri­bu­tes regu­larly to the jour­nal e-​​flux where she authors nume­rous texts on issues con­cer­ning image the­ory, inc­lu­ding those publi­shed in the col­lec­tion The Wret­ched of the Screen. Stern­berg Press: 2013.

This exhi­bi­tion is the 4th and last act of Alter­na­tiva 2014: The Gar­den of Eve­ry­day Errors. For­mer exhi­bi­tions were Oli­ver Res­sler: Poli­ti­cal Ima­gi­na­ries: Making the World Anew, Eve­ry­day­ness and Otherwise.

The exhi­bi­tion was finan­ced by the means from The City of Gdansk, and co-​​finances by means from The Mini­stry of Cul­ture and Natio­nal Heri­tage, and reali­sed thanks to the help form Insi­tut für Auslands­be­zie­hun­gen (ifa) in Stut­t­gart. Grupa Azoty SA is a part­ner of Alter­na­tiva 2014.

Opening: 16 October, 7 p.m.

Wyspa Institute of Art
Doki 1/145B 80-958 Gdansk Poland
Opening hours
Tuesday - Sunday 12:00 - 8:00 PM

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