STUDIO: Reload: Feminism

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STUDIO: Reload: Feminism

The starting point of the studio exhibition is the video piece “I’m Not The Girl Who Misses Much” by Pipilotti Rist from 1986, which is included in the collection of the Kunsthalle Mannheim. The video shows the artist in a black dress dancing in a room that is alternately white, red and blue. The mantra repeatedly sung by Rist is an adaptation of the Beatles song “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”—a playfully feminist critique of the platitudinous, mostly sexist perception of femininity on TV and in the music industry. Her short film tells of courage and melancholy, of falling and standing up again, of resistance and self-exploration.

Taking Rist’s work as a point of departure, the studio becomes a place of dreaming, criticizing and inquiring for Mannheim’s urban community. Various initiatives are invited to make visible their perspectives, attitudes and questions in the area of tension between feminism, art and popular culture.

In artistic cooperation with the Mannheimer Stadtensemble, the Nationaltheater Mannheim, and the Queeres Zentrum Mannheim e.V. (QZM)

Curator: Christina Bergemann

The exhibition is sponsored by:

This exhibition has been made possible by a benefit auction by ARTgenossen, the Young Friends of the Kunsthalle Mannheim.

ARTgenossen

 

FILMSTILLS

Things are not the same as they were in 1971 for women artists and the people who write about them. There is a whole flourishing area of gender studies in academy, a whole production of critical representation that engages with issues of gender in the museums and art galleries. Women artists, of all kinds, are talked about, looked at, have made their mark – and this includes women artists of color. Yet, there is still, again, a long way to go. Critical practice must, I think, remain at the heart of our enterprise. 

Linda Nochlin, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? Thirty Years After, 2006

WEITERE VIDEOARBEITEN

"Osmose – active fault"

Andrea Chagas & QZM – Queeres Zentrum Mannheim e.V.

The biochemical process of osmosis stands for the motion of mingling, the dissolution of the boundaries of a binary system. The video Osmose: active fault shows the self-awareness and the dilemma of a young woman having to decide between love and religion. In the video, we also explore the relationship between gender identity, politics and religion in the history of the queer community and ask: What happens to the psyche of a person who grew up in a religious faith that regards homosexuality as a sickness? What happens to a person whose family would turn away from their own child when they learn that the child is queer? The semi-permeable vessel represents patriarchy, it divides worlds, denominations, people, and defines them in hierarchies – according to what they “are,” what they have, or what they “are not” or lack. One part of society is usually connoted positively-cis, man, hetero, white, able-bodied, slim, educated, logic, activity etc. (corresponds with the water concentration with higher pressure) – while the other part of society is stigmatized-woman, trans, LGBTQIA+, BIPoC, fat, uneducated, intuition, passivity etc. (corresponds with the water concentration with lower pressure). As long as there is a membrane between them, there can be no equal distribution – no equality. Alluding to Pipilotti Rist’s I Am Not The Girl Who Misses Much, a destructive impulse is transformed into something hopeful with self-determined images of sensuality, intimacy and liberation.

2023 / Video
Production, Directing and Postproduction: Andrea Chagas
Camera: Alize Adamopoulos / Andrea Chagas
Animation: Bendeform
Audio: Kysha Schott
Cast: Aylin, Anna Roth, Jule Seiler, Ilka Kaufmann, Alize Adamopoulos, Flora, Raphael Wilberg, Cilly Dickmann, Katrin Hofner, Besa Demiri, Annick Mörth, Leonardo Olavarrieta, Laura Riedl, Laura Lenz, Eddi Bludau, Anna Krentz, Juliette Jiouo, Katharina Gierl, Nicki Oup

Queeres Zentrum Mannheim

"misses much"

Mannheimer Stadtensemble, NTM

“misses much” by the Mannheimer Stadtensemble takes a close look at the title I’m Not The Girl Who Misses Much. The verb “to miss” has a variety of meanings, e.g., to long for someone who is not there, to lack something, to not hit a target, to overlook, to come too late... What feminist bodies do we miss? Which ones do we overlook? What connections do we miss? Searching for suitable material, the Stadtensemble came upon self-empowered figures resisting and fighting against current patriarchal norms. They include a woman burning her headscarf during the protests in Iran, the performance of Pussy Riot in a Moscow church, the action of the Chilean feminist Las Tesis, or the artist Peaches. The images and videos are projected onto the bodies of Mannheim citizens. This connection gives rise to the following questions: How are we connected with each other? What effects does the female body have in a global context? How closely do the issues affect us here in Mannheim? How can one show solidarity from a distance? Using language, movements and color, the six Mannheim citizens of different generations make reference to Pipilotti Rist’s early video art from the 1980s and connect it to the present.

2023 / Video
Concept: Nazli Saremi
Sound / Cut: Friedrich Byusa Blam
Cast: Berrin Seker, Lena Hauke, Tina Stottko, Claudia Pflaum-Richter, Ricarda Walter, Susanne Kugler, Ceyda Özcelik
Co-Worker: Henri Möhren & Michael Schreiber
The performance Misses Much by the Mannheimer Stadtensemble uses excerpts from the theatre production "Wir sind so frei" with texts by Gerhild Steinbuch.
Other texts are by @nazlinaznaz @localbrownbaby @freeda_en @bisexual_oppression_olympics1 (Instagram) and from the songs "Introvert" and "Woman" by Little Simz.
Mannheimer Stadtensemble, Nationaltheater Mannheim unter der künstlerischen Leitung von Beata Anna Schmutz

Nationaltheater Mannheim

Exhibition booklet

STUDIO: Reload: Feminism

Published by Kunsthalle Mannheim
Editors: Johan Holten und Christina Bergemann
With an essay by Christina Bergemann
An exhibition project based on the video work "I'm Not The Girl Who Misses Much" by Pipilotti Rist & an artistic collaboration with Nazli Saremi & the Mannheimer Stadtensemble, Nationaltheater Mannheim and Andrea Chagas & the Queeres Zentrum Mannheim e.V.
32 pages, 26 color illustrations
Book size: 24 x 17 cm
German / English
Softcover / Design: Alexander Lorenz
Publication Date: May 2023
Price: 5 Euro

STUDIO

The STUDIO is where Kunsthalle Mannheim displays contemporary art by living artists. The STUDIO provides space for unfettered transdisciplinary experiments. This is where visitors can see changing exhibitions of new work by international artists working on surprising themes and questions.

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