Contemporary
art that links the language of everyday life with theoretical analyses of
society finds a correspondingly versatile medium in video technology.
In today’s culture the generally accepted form and content of all types
of communication come together in (moving) imagery. Focusing on a broad spectrum
of image production, the artists (and this exhibition project) take the artistic
explorations of the early (also feminist) critique of representation as a
point of departure.
<hers> deals with video as female terrain. But the theme is not art
by women. The theme is the representation of women in media imagery and narratives.
The artists presented here have grown up with film and TV in a time in which
everyone takes the consumption and production of images completely for granted.
The development of recording technology has led to a convergence of momentary
experience and recollection, reality and virtuality, and culminates as the
production and reception of images overlap in the Camcorder that, for some,
has become a companion in everyday life.
These artists are no longer convinced that a clear line can be drawn between
art and mass media, between individual creativity and collectively accepted
clichés, or even between male and female. They are all conversant with
(feminist) media critique and the analysis of power inherent in the photographic
gaze. They know that the mass media rely on the use of very generalized, stereotype
images and statements on which the collective values of society are based.
They are also aware of the fact that the information and entertainment industry
must constantly find new themes and new forms of visual attraction to keep
the audience tuned. Just as commercial culture is forced to keep adapting
its images and clichés, our perception and assessment of them –
which also provides self-insight – is subject to constant change.
<hers> explores current ways of countering the babble of the media and
pictorial stereotypes with individual forms of expression – and this
in spite of the awareness that individuality never develops at a remove from
"existing conditions". <hers> is an exhibition that invites
you to linger and to come back.
_Stella Rollig lives in Vienna as author, art critic and curator. Her professional
interests focus on artistic and curatorial practices outside of exhibition
institutions, the relationship of art, the mass media and popular culture,
socio-political interventions that are developed in the context of art, collective
approaches and the issue of role distribution in the art world. In 1994, while
she was the Austrian Federal Curator for Visual Arts, she founded the "Depot.
Art and Discussion" in Vienna. Teaching activities at the Academy of Fine
Arts in Munich and at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Alberta, Canada.
Please also
visit the archive of Basis-Wien at
http://www.basis-wien.at
