en face
en face Jeffrey Isaac, Reinhard Kühl, Petra Lottje, Lars Maurmaier, Margund Smolka, Jonas Wilisch
Exhibition duration: October 16 to November 7, 2010
Opening: Friday, August 15, 2010, 7:30 PM
Depicting the faces of predominantly well-known personalities while capturing or idealizing their individuality and characteristics has been an important and often lucrative field for artists over the centuries.
Since the advent of photography, most portraits have been created in this medium. The classic painted or sculpted portrait, on the other hand, is now almost exclusively used for representative or memorial purposes.
Nevertheless, portraits have remained of great significance in contemporary art—not so much as commissioned works, but rather for personal concepts and series that primarily relate to the altered perception brought about by photographic or cinematic representation and its mass dissemination.
The fourth part of the exhibition series Gattungen at kunstraum t27 now provides insight into these current positions in portrait art.
Jeffrey Isaac invited people in New York to embody the habits of their favorite animals. From photographs taken for this purpose, an impressive series of painterly portraits emerged, showcasing people in curious poses. Represented as a penguin or a horse, a clear analogy can be drawn between the chosen representative of one’s psyche and the depicted figure.
Reinhard Kühl collected amateur photographs showing children from his generation on their first day of school. In the painterly interpretation, the faded colors and the feeling of awkwardness associated with this perhaps first experience of being "in the spotlight" remain evident. The series highlights the consistent gaze on various childlike personalities as a constraint of conventional viewing habits.
In her video work "Jedes Zimmer hinter einer Tür," Petra Lottje takes on various female roles. She re-stages 25 dialogues in German, edited from various (Hollywood) films, with herself appearing as the female part in different relationship dramas. Through rapid shifts in situations and personalities, she creates a kaleidoscopic yet condensed psychogram of female behavioral roles.
Lars Maurmaier uses industrially produced and standardized packaging materials to craft individual human profiles through shadow outlines. When viewed together, the portrait heads installed at actual human height evoke a sense of physiognomic prototypes.
Margund Smolka transfers photographic portraits onto perforated transparent foils using injection printing, layering them slightly shifted in multiple layers. Observing the depicted faces and family scenes creates a sense of irritation, as they gain tactile quality yet remain elusive. The multifaceted and ephemeral materiality of the works offers no certainty and questions our seemingly secure existence.
Jonas Wilisch presents the first works from his conceptual photo series "The Space Left Behind," in which he interrogates the reality content and manipulation possibilities of photographic transfers from three-dimensional reality to two-dimensional surfaces. In the age of Photoshop, he exposes the portrait of a young woman in front of an imitated house facade as a multiple analog forgery.
Accompanying program
Thursday, October 21, 7:30 PM
“Projektionen," curated by Ute Aurand and Deborah Phillips
Thursday, November 4, 7:30 PM
"Porträt," art historical lecture by Carola Zimmermann
Saturday, November 6 (NACHTUNDNEBEL 2010)
5:00 PM: Finissage with artist talk
6:00 PM: “Faltporträts live,” action by Lars Maurmaier
11:00 PM: Drawing of the art lottery