S M Van Der Linden
08 Feb - 08 Mar 2014
S M VAN DER LINDEN
Depressiva
8 February - 8 March 2014
We are pleased to announce DEPRESSIVA, S.M. van der Linden’s first solo show at SEPTEMBER. The films, video installations, and performances of the Berlin-based Dutch artist examine female role models and the structures of representation and power in capitalist societies, in which bodies and relationships are ruthlessly economized. DEPRESSIVA includes a selection of works made between 2006 and 2013, arranged into two sections that address the two extreme poles of this economization: the desire for flawless beauty, absolute control, and perfection, and the reality hiding behind this façade: depression, feelings of inferiority, isolation, addiction, shame.
At the same time, van der Linden’s deeply narcissistic, perfection-obsessed YOUNG GIRL Cosmos is an homage to a variety of tropes from the entertainment industry: early Disney films, Vogue and voguing, models and runways, ads and Busby Berkeley musicals from the 1930s and 1940s, jingles and muzak. Van der Linden’s Depressiva trilogy (Depressiva, 2010, Subterranean Breathing, 2010, and Skype, 2011) explores the consequences of this overdose: cold turkey, panic, paralysis — which van der Linden sets in scene in the form of screwball comedies and slapstick chamber plays.
Van der Linden’s video and performance works owe as much influence to the early films of Warhol and Fassbinder as to mechanical Bauhaus ballets, bondage, and vintage pornography. They are all based on a compositional process that plays through the mechanisms of individual and collective control on an array of levels. Her films almost always arise as collective projects with actors, fellow artists, and directors. The point of departure consists of improvisations that are carefully regimented: the setting and costumes determine the actors’ movements, the dialogues and monologues do not arise spontaneously, but take place with countless interruptions and repetitions — for as long as it takes to arrive at a result that is both authentic and completely artificial.
The continuously controlled improvisation process leads to content that is self-evident: the dialogues veer off in unexpected departures, the repetitions give rise to new meaning, or a lack thereof. The actors and voices in van der Linden’s video works often quote from pre-existing material: art historical and feminist texts, texts that are critical of capitalism, artists’ statements, affirmative advertising slogans. Like the cloned YOUNG GIRL figures and the decorative backdrops, costumes, and objects in van der Linden’s films, language emerges as a modular form that speaks in ever-changing constellations of beauty, but also of emptiness, isolation, and superficiality.
Depressiva
8 February - 8 March 2014
We are pleased to announce DEPRESSIVA, S.M. van der Linden’s first solo show at SEPTEMBER. The films, video installations, and performances of the Berlin-based Dutch artist examine female role models and the structures of representation and power in capitalist societies, in which bodies and relationships are ruthlessly economized. DEPRESSIVA includes a selection of works made between 2006 and 2013, arranged into two sections that address the two extreme poles of this economization: the desire for flawless beauty, absolute control, and perfection, and the reality hiding behind this façade: depression, feelings of inferiority, isolation, addiction, shame.
At the same time, van der Linden’s deeply narcissistic, perfection-obsessed YOUNG GIRL Cosmos is an homage to a variety of tropes from the entertainment industry: early Disney films, Vogue and voguing, models and runways, ads and Busby Berkeley musicals from the 1930s and 1940s, jingles and muzak. Van der Linden’s Depressiva trilogy (Depressiva, 2010, Subterranean Breathing, 2010, and Skype, 2011) explores the consequences of this overdose: cold turkey, panic, paralysis — which van der Linden sets in scene in the form of screwball comedies and slapstick chamber plays.
Van der Linden’s video and performance works owe as much influence to the early films of Warhol and Fassbinder as to mechanical Bauhaus ballets, bondage, and vintage pornography. They are all based on a compositional process that plays through the mechanisms of individual and collective control on an array of levels. Her films almost always arise as collective projects with actors, fellow artists, and directors. The point of departure consists of improvisations that are carefully regimented: the setting and costumes determine the actors’ movements, the dialogues and monologues do not arise spontaneously, but take place with countless interruptions and repetitions — for as long as it takes to arrive at a result that is both authentic and completely artificial.
The continuously controlled improvisation process leads to content that is self-evident: the dialogues veer off in unexpected departures, the repetitions give rise to new meaning, or a lack thereof. The actors and voices in van der Linden’s video works often quote from pre-existing material: art historical and feminist texts, texts that are critical of capitalism, artists’ statements, affirmative advertising slogans. Like the cloned YOUNG GIRL figures and the decorative backdrops, costumes, and objects in van der Linden’s films, language emerges as a modular form that speaks in ever-changing constellations of beauty, but also of emptiness, isolation, and superficiality.