Josephine Meckseper
21 Feb - 03 May 2009
JOSEPHINE MECKSEPER
February 21, 2009 until May 3, 2009
In her photography, videos and installations Josephine Meckseper (born Lilienthal, 1964, lives and works in New York) engages with the interaction between politics and glamour. Thus, in her works, images of political activism – whether photographs of demonstrations or newspaper cuttings – set against sparkling consumer goods and advertising motifs evoke a paradoxical effect. On the one hand the pop-political vocabulary of forms appears absurd in its opposing ideological effect, on the other the artist discloses references by interpolating them seamlessly in a decoratively elegant looking display. Meckseper has pursued the capitalist-critique approach of recent years with subject areas agitating around the Iraq war and the oil industry with all their inherent economic and socio-political implications, in particular regarding the automobile industry. The exhibition in the migros museum für gegenwartskunst is to display a new series of works developed from this context. Hence in the "Ten High" installation (2007) numerous silver shop display dummies converge on a mirror smooth platform holding in their hands objects such as signs, bearing anti-war slogans like “No War in Iran” or the notorious recession signal “Going Out of Business / Sale”, a whisky bottle or a bible and other classical American “icons”. Meckseper’s object arrangements recall the window displays of department stores and expensive boutiques, re-contextualising the exhibited objects: the shibboleths are ascribed a new significance – from now on a consumerist lifestyle posture. Works by Josephine Meckseper were last to be seen amongst others in the New Photography: Josephine Meckseper and Mikhael Subotzky, MoMA (2008), exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (solo exhibition, 2007) or in the Whitney Biennial (2006). The exhibition in the migros museum für gegenwartskunst is curated by Heike Munder.
February 21, 2009 until May 3, 2009
In her photography, videos and installations Josephine Meckseper (born Lilienthal, 1964, lives and works in New York) engages with the interaction between politics and glamour. Thus, in her works, images of political activism – whether photographs of demonstrations or newspaper cuttings – set against sparkling consumer goods and advertising motifs evoke a paradoxical effect. On the one hand the pop-political vocabulary of forms appears absurd in its opposing ideological effect, on the other the artist discloses references by interpolating them seamlessly in a decoratively elegant looking display. Meckseper has pursued the capitalist-critique approach of recent years with subject areas agitating around the Iraq war and the oil industry with all their inherent economic and socio-political implications, in particular regarding the automobile industry. The exhibition in the migros museum für gegenwartskunst is to display a new series of works developed from this context. Hence in the "Ten High" installation (2007) numerous silver shop display dummies converge on a mirror smooth platform holding in their hands objects such as signs, bearing anti-war slogans like “No War in Iran” or the notorious recession signal “Going Out of Business / Sale”, a whisky bottle or a bible and other classical American “icons”. Meckseper’s object arrangements recall the window displays of department stores and expensive boutiques, re-contextualising the exhibited objects: the shibboleths are ascribed a new significance – from now on a consumerist lifestyle posture. Works by Josephine Meckseper were last to be seen amongst others in the New Photography: Josephine Meckseper and Mikhael Subotzky, MoMA (2008), exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (solo exhibition, 2007) or in the Whitney Biennial (2006). The exhibition in the migros museum für gegenwartskunst is curated by Heike Munder.