Ulrike Heise
21 Jul - 19 Aug 2006
Ulrike Heise
Klosterfelde Gallery is happy to announce the first solo-show with Berlin artist Ulrike Heise (* 1974), from the 20th of July onwards at Linienstrasse 160.
A moth’s body twitches ever so slightly. A deformed ant teeters without orientation. Helplessly clamped, a crab tries to free itself from the clasp of a mussel. A sand wasp drags itself across the ground.
The artist has filmed perishing insects. The film shows quiescent close-up views of their last vital signs, often discernible only as minimal movement. Heise does not interfere with the events (nor did she provoke them), but depicts exposed hazards and partly accidents. In the style of a documentary portrait animals are being put on display without comment. The viewer is confronted with procedures that happen millionfold on a daily basis, but that usually take place outside his or her field of vision. Despite the neutral approach of the artist, similar patterns of behaviour in the different stages of mortal agony seem to stand out. The study bears voyeuristic and banal traits. However, for the viewer the search for meaning inevitably leads via expression that may or may not lie in the final twitches of the insects (some of them literally ’on their last legs’). If these are associated with gestures, signals, - states akin to emotion it will raise questions about the nature and quality of the viewer’s capacity for empathy. Thus references to customary and simple media theory are made and implemented as means of pro-
duction by the artist.
For further information or images please contact the gallery.
opening: 20th July 2006, 6-9 pm
duration of the exhibition: 21st July - August 19th 2006
opening hours: Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 - 6 pm and by appointment
Klosterfelde Gallery is happy to announce the first solo-show with Berlin artist Ulrike Heise (* 1974), from the 20th of July onwards at Linienstrasse 160.
A moth’s body twitches ever so slightly. A deformed ant teeters without orientation. Helplessly clamped, a crab tries to free itself from the clasp of a mussel. A sand wasp drags itself across the ground.
The artist has filmed perishing insects. The film shows quiescent close-up views of their last vital signs, often discernible only as minimal movement. Heise does not interfere with the events (nor did she provoke them), but depicts exposed hazards and partly accidents. In the style of a documentary portrait animals are being put on display without comment. The viewer is confronted with procedures that happen millionfold on a daily basis, but that usually take place outside his or her field of vision. Despite the neutral approach of the artist, similar patterns of behaviour in the different stages of mortal agony seem to stand out. The study bears voyeuristic and banal traits. However, for the viewer the search for meaning inevitably leads via expression that may or may not lie in the final twitches of the insects (some of them literally ’on their last legs’). If these are associated with gestures, signals, - states akin to emotion it will raise questions about the nature and quality of the viewer’s capacity for empathy. Thus references to customary and simple media theory are made and implemented as means of pro-
duction by the artist.
For further information or images please contact the gallery.
opening: 20th July 2006, 6-9 pm
duration of the exhibition: 21st July - August 19th 2006
opening hours: Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 - 6 pm and by appointment