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Contemporary
art that links the language of everyday life with theoretical analyses
of society finds a correspondingly versatile medium in video technology.
In todays 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
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