FRIDEY MICKEL, LINDA WEISS "MADE IN (EXPLICIT)" AT PREVIEW BERLIN IN BERLIN IN ART, BERLIN, SEPTEMBER 26, 2013

Linda Weiss’ personal demeanor, with her sweet smile and open energy, might trick you into assuming something else, but her divide-and-conquer attitude towards how she processes her projects will totally surprise you. She’s a real tiger when it comes to mapping ideas aesthetically through her photography, into exhibitions that work like conceptual space-installations. Her contribution to the Preview Art Fair, was no different, as she exhibited “Made in (Explicit)” in support of Scotty Enterprises. The young artist, of House of Photography Moscow fame, sought inspiration from Kanye West and Jay-Z to create for the audience a dramaturgy of images that form together a complete organic glimpse into the human mind. 

Five years ago, she bumped into a Wall Street worker whilst in The Big Apple. She (a German Photographer) and he (an Afro-American self-made man) bore at first starkly contrasted each another. Yet, a common love for music and work lead to an ever-blossoming exchange about political action, love and business. With her camera in hand and Kanye West and Jay-Z’s “Watch the Throne” album in her headphones, she took to the rooftops of New York and Chicago to capture fleeting images of the Empire State Building and Lincoln Square respectively. All the while, her mind was reflecting on the conversations the two were having. 

The images represent the dialog and interchanging backgrounds between the two, using timed snapshots combined with philosophical lyrics from the rappers and a quoted speech from Abraham Lincoln to recreate a feeling of contemplation of the modern world around us. Further, she plays with the iconographical double-meanings found both in the political and hip hop worlds.