Liina Siib
dal 19/1/2006 al 17/3/2006
Segnalato da
19/1/2006
Liina Siib
Giedre Bartelt Galerie, Berlin
Eye Strip. The artist is one of the first artists in Estonia who started to use digitally treated photographs. From the very beginning, her “topic" has been the deeper facets of human nature, the complicated relations between childhood and the world of adults. She penetrates ever deeper into those concealed facets, creating more multilayered and elaborate systems of allusions.
Eye Strip
Liina Siib (*1963, Tallinn) is one of the first artists in Estonia who started
to use digitally treated photographs. From the very beginning, her “topic"
has been the deeper facets of human nature, the complicated relations between
childhood and the world of adults. Liina Siib penetrates ever deeper into
those concealed facets, creating more multilayered and elaborate systems
of allusions. She has chosen to cast a closer look at one savoury moment
- a child’s wish to become an adult as soon as possible, and the images
that childhood presents as the grown-up world. Profound sadness can sometimes
be glimpsed on these pictures - an adult’s submission to laws that cannot
be changed, and an inability to comfort children in their activity and
games.
Digital treatment has provided Siib’s photos with a special dimension of reality, a kind
of space. It differentiates them already by their visual perception from
the so-called documentary art, and from the world that fixes the everyday
life impartially. It is still not the matter of created reality versus
the actual reality. Like so many things in Liina Siib’s work, the notion
‘reality’, too, moves on the border where the different sides have not
been precisely determined.
Sirje Helme, Director of KUMU - New Art Museum of Estonia
The posters of the project „Movie Posters“ (2001-2004) advertise films and film characters
that do not exist. Each poster is provided with a sentence summarizing
the film. The posters interpret different film genres like action, horror,
documentary, neorealist drama, gay & lesbian, musical, romance etc.
The unfulfilled dreams of people are realised in fairy tales or films of
different genres as if by magic, the story simulates perfection. Viewers
are given the chance to identify with likeable characters. The posters
base on archive of photographs taken by author in different parts of our
world.
Liina Siib about „Movie Posters“
The series „The Fig Leaf“ (2002/ 2004) examines cultural conventions, presenting a
`photographic herbarium' of marble or plaster fig leaves, including examples
from the public places or museums and parks in Tallinn and London. A fig
leaf was added to the sculptures in order to protect the viewer from seeing
the discreet places of naked figures. The conventionality of exposure in
public places is associated with the still existing class ideology, although
considering the specifics of different sculptures (emperor, young girl,
ancient Greek god), the fig leaves positioned over the private parts are
today rather protecting the sculptures from the lewd glances of the viewers.
>From here unravels the topic of the catastrophic constriction of private
space, and the fig leaf could easily start denoting privacy instead of
marking the Fall and exit from the Garden of Eden.
Liina Siib about „The Fig Leaf“
Catalogue available (among others with a text by Jan Kaus)
Preview: Friday, 20th January 6.00 - 9.00 pm
Giedre Bartelt Galerie
Linienstrasse 161 - Berlin
Opening hours: Tuesday-Saturday 2.00-6.00 pm