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3/6/2012

Sex, DUI's and Videotape II

Hilger Brot Kunsthalle, Wien

SEX, DUI’s and VIDEOTAPE II will feature works by: Danielle Buetti, Clifton Childree, Brian McKee, Martin Murphy, Emilio Chapela Perez, Cameron Platter, Miha Strukelj, Sara Rahbar and Simon Vega.

The title is a nod to Director Steven Soderberg’s cult classic, Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989), which depicts a central male character filming women sharing their most intimate thoughts about their sexuality. Throughout the movie, unexpected power plays unfold and the camera becomes a tool for withholding information, strategically revealing its story to the viewer by selectively sharing its footage. Over the past few decades, the medium of video has been responsible for the proliferation of information, shifting the power from an elite few to the masses. The accessibility of video has greatly expanded, and with it, the nature of the footage being produced. No longer reserved for the creation of movies, short films and documentaries. It has become a compulsory component of every digital camera, transforming its normative function of simply capturing snapshots of happy moments in everyday life to that of a constant watchful eye or voyeur.

SEX, DUI’s and VIDEOTAPE II investigates the contemporary fixation with filming and distributing “real life” experiences and how that exacerbates the level of exposure in today’s society.
From the silent films of Charlie Chaplin to the more recent antics on the game show Wipe Out, self-inflicted humiliation has been a constant tool in the comedic bag of tricks; a humor device used to put audiences at ease and to enroll them in absurd activities on screen. This spectacle of humiliation is aggravated by actions of celebrities who earn more air time as “bad behavior” icons --via videos featuring them having sex, in drunken debauchery and Driving Under the Influence-- than for their body of work, stirring in the onlooker a morbid curiosity and, for some, mild admiration. In this time, as we are inundated with an abundance of pixels, data and information streams, we are forced to redefine for ourselves as to what constitutes authentic moments of contemporary beauty, expected behavior and the concept of fame. Thanks to You Tube, reality TV shows and other technology, Andy Warhol’s oft-quoted saying about fame has become a widespread truth. Is everyone’s “15 minutes” the new reality?

INTRODUCTION

Sex, DUI’s And Videotape II is the second iteration of the exhibition that was first shown in New York at Site/109 earlier this year.

Group exhibitions based around a central theme is an interesting exercise in juxtapositions: works contrast and compliment each other offering an expanded web of dialogue. In contrast, many solo exhibition offer an in-depth exploration in to an artists work that is focused. How can one achieve this in a group exhibition whilst still exploring a central theme?

In an attempt to try and achieve both the interaction and possibility created through this web of dialogue, and the individual focus of a solo exhibition, I asked each artist to answer four banal and open-ended questions. These questions loosely revolve around the exhibition theme, yet are vague enough to invite response in any way an artist pleases. Some have chosen to respond seriously, some have negated the question process, but each has offered further insight into their individual practice and/or thinking. Nevertheless by opening up the lens to a wider scope, the exhibition expands a little more beyond the walls of the exhibition space.

Many thanks to the artists for working together, Ernst Hilger and BROTKunsthalle for another invaluable opportunity.

Claire Breukel, Curator

Image: Daniele Buetti, oh boy oh boy XXVII_B, 2011, acrylic glass mosaic, 120 x 100 cm

Further information
Katrin-Sophie Dworczak T +43 (1) 512531515 katrin.dworczak@hilger.at

Opening 4 June 2012, 7 p.m.

Hilger BROT Kunsthalle
Absberggasse 27 - 1100 Wien
Hours: Thu–Sat, 12–6pm
and by appointment

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