Irina Botea feat. WeAreTheArtists feat. Ferhat Özgür feat. Ruti Sela & Mayaan Amir

May 29 - July 10 2011

The exhibition is a combination of solo and group show, with the main accent on Irina Botea’s work. The inclusion of Ruti Sela, Mayaan Amir and Ferhat Özgür is the result of extensive research into positions of contemporary art that share a crucial aspect of Botea’s artistic production. In her videos, Botea very often refers to modes of re-enactment and role-play; but her main target is not to create a fiction that is taken for reality. Her interest lies in the reality of the performance and the authentic individuality of the performers. The presentation at Kunsthalle shows six works by Botea: two projected works, Before a National Anthem (2009) and Picturesque (2011), and the rest, Ladybug (2007), MeNoMe (2005), Pinocchio (2009) and Laura (2010), are presented on monitors. The interest in the human being is also key to works by Ferhat Özgür and Ruti Sela. Thus, one work by each artist complements the exhibition: Metamorphosis Chat (2009) by Özgür and Ruti Sela’s Beyond Guilt # 2 (2004), a film that she made together with Mayaan Amir. The artists’ network WeAreTheArtists presents a series of portraits; members of the network were asked to send a photo of themselves which they considered to reveal most about who they are. Another highlight is the new issue of the beloved free newspaper WeAreTheArtists, including the brand new photo story Natural Born Curators.

Oliver Kielmayer