Upcoming exhibitions at Badischer Kunstverein
Marianne Wex
“Female” and “Male” Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures
Atrium:
Tanja Widmann
one of you
Waldstrassensaal:
Daniel Gustav Cramer & Haris Epaminonda
The Infinite Library
6 July–9 September 2012
Opening: 5 July, 7pm
Badischer Kunstverein
Waldstraße 3
76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
Marianne Wex
“Female” and “Male” Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures
(“Weibliche” und “männliche” Körpersprache als Folge patriarchalischer Machtverhältnisse)
Badischer Kunstverein presents Marianne Wex in her first comprehensive solo exhibition in Germany since the 1970s. From 1972 to 1977 Wex photographed people and their body language on the streets of Hamburg and subsequently classified her photos into different categories. She juxtaposed women and men according to the specific positioning of arms and legs, feet, knees, elbows, hands, shoulders, and heads. She was interested in the degree to which gender-specific conditioning and hierarchy are reflected through everyday poses and gestures. In order to expand her research, Wex supplemented the approximately 5000 photographs taken in public spaces with rephotographed pictures from mass-media sources and statuary from antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Marianne Wex’s vast work of photographic taxonomy is at once conceptual and documentary, personal and polemical. It elucidates a specific approach to the medium of photography and to the appropriation of found image material. At the same time, her work has its roots in the feminist movement of the 1970s, with the collaged photo panels having been shown for the first time in 1977 as part of the exhibition “Women Artists International 1877–1977″ at NGBK in Berlin.
Co-curated by Mike Sperlinger, London.
The display structure has been developed in cooperation with artist Ruth Buchanan and architect Andreas Müller. With special thanks to the archive bildwechsel, Hamburg, www.bildwechsel.org.
Marianne Wex (b. 1937 in Hamburg) lives and works in Höhr-Grenzhausen, Germany.
Atrium:
Tanja Widmann
one of you (eine von euch)
With the exhibition eine von euch (one of you), Badischer Kunstverein presents a new, space-encompassing installation by the Vienna-based artist Tanja Widmann.
Establishing the point of departure for the new installation eine von euch is a report on a psychoanalytical session held by Félix Guattari with his patient R.A. and the composition of their interaction. This has led Widmann to investigate acts of speaking that suggest a specific (power) relation between “speaking/knowing” subjects and “unknowing” ones, as can be discerned in the psychoanalyst’s speech—but also in remarks made by the British animal scientist David Attenborough about his research subjects, or by the scientists in Frederick Wiseman’s film Primate (1974).
In the exhibition, Widmann arranges various media and materials in an open form of installation, which now allows heterogeneous elements to uniquely encounter one another, such as psychoanalysis, primate research, early speeches given by Margaret Thatcher, contemporary art blogs, but also a Versace collection for H&M, and embroidery patterned in speculative constellations.
Setup: Johannes Porsch
Embroidery: Tonio Kröner
In cooperation with Grazer Kunstverein and tranzitdisplay, Prague.
Tanja Widmann (b. 1966 in Villach, Austria) lives and works in Vienna.
Waldstrassensaal:
Daniel Gustav Cramer & Haris Epaminonda
The Infinite Library
Badischer Kunstverein is showing The Infinite Library in its first solo presentation in Germany. The Infinite Library is an ongoing project through which the artists Haris Epaminonda and Daniel Gustav Cramer have been collaborating since 2007. Their interest is focused on the creation of an archive comprised of books, whereby one or more pages from other existing publications are integrated into each volume. The concept behind each new volume develops step by step: the starting point is both the content of the respective original book and the associations that evolve throughout the process of creation.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive publication published in cooperation with Jeff Khonsary/New Documents, Vancouver.
Daniel Gustav Cramer (b. 1975 in Neuss) and Haris Epaminonda (b. 1980 in Nicosia, Cyprus) live and work in Berlin.
Talks and events
Friday, 6 July, 7–10pm
Workshop with Marianne Wex
Körpersprache, Lebensräume
Friday, 13 July, 6pm
Frau Freitag at Kunstverein
Performances in dialogue with Marianne Wex’s body language project
In the context of the performance festival Frau Freitag at State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe
Wednesday, 5 September, 7pm
Film screening
Films compiled by Daniel Gustav Cramer & Haris Epaminonda
Friday, 7 September, 8pm
Performance by Tanja Widmann
this is how (the artist is present) oh yeah
Followed by an artist’s talk and bar