Three artists from three different regions and cultures, pose questions
about civil liberties. They each use a different medium. Johan Creten brings
new works in bronze, among which a one and a half meters high and two meters
wide version of 'The Price of Freedom, presented for the first time in
Europe. Khalili presents a conceptual photographic work that imposes conditions
upon the relationship with the owner of the work. Zvyagintseva invests existing
objects with a political message. She shows, among other works, a small prison
cell made of fabric, a work that was also presented in 2015 at the Venice
Biennial.
JOHAN CRETEN
In accordance with the artist’s desire to
generate contradictory interpretations, this sculpture can be seen as the symbol
of power and strength, the heraldic animal of many empires; at the same time it
can also be understood as a bird covered with oil, fragile and vulnerable. In
this piece, different ideologies - ecological and political, individual and
multiple, evil and holy - come together. [Nicola Trezzi in the Wall Street
Journal, 26-8-2015]
In the course of history, the eagle has often
stood as a symbol of power, with the Nazi era as an absolute low point. Although
eagles stand for freedom in American legends, they also symbolize power and
authority. With his work ‘The Price of Freedom’ Creten points to the
danger of this shift in symbolic meaning. [Elien Haentjens, 2013]
Unlike the eagle which functions as a symbol
of freedom in American legends, in Indo-European cultures, the eagle represents
very different, often contradictory symbolic values. Sometimes it is an
expression of power that no longer guarantees individual freedoms (expression,
property, etc.). Creten warns us against reappropriating these kinds of symbols.
[Ludovic Recchia, 2007]
YAZAN KHALILI
The Artwork is a photograph that
contains a contract that speaks in the name of the artwork.
The main premise of this work is the question
of boycotting, more precisely: can an artwork boycott? And can we take seriously
what the artwork is trying to say? Creating a situation in which the artwork
demands the boycott of the institution it refuses to be exhibited in, owned or
collected by.
The Artwork is a photograph (79 x
120 cm) which contains the contract that has been drawn up by Dr. Martin Heller,
a Berlin-based lawyer who specializes in art-related issues.
The contract, even though it is written in
legal terms and wording, does not stand up when presented in a legal context.
Its failure is due to the fact that the artwork itself cannot speak in a legal
sense, it cannot be part of the contract, it cannot speak for itself, only the
artist can speak for it, which is why this contract fails to represent the
artwork in itself. The contract creates a kind of legal and ethical
paradox.
The project aims to investigate the
boundaries between law and justice, how justice cannot be expressed through law,
and how law becomes a language that includes and excludes subjects according to
its own regulations and structures.
The photograph contains the contract the
artwork speaks through, stating its clear demands on the way in which it can be
exhibited, collected, and owned. However, whoever exhibits, collects, or owns
this artwork can decide whether to obey these demands and conditions or not,
depending on whether they take the artwork seriously, or not.
The work has been produced with the great
help and assistance of Dr. Martin Heller.
ANNA ZVYAGINTSEVA
Anna
Zvyagintseva is presenting a cage made of fabric—a knitted cage. In Ukrainian
courtrooms there is always a cage in which a person is forced to sit if he or
she is considered dangerous. The process of knitting, here, is a metaphor for
the time that is taken away from activists by the court system, even if they are
not imprisoned. So the work is about time, and about soft repression, too.
[Alexander Scrimgeour in Artforum, Oct. 2010]
'The cage' object
has the form and size of a standard cage for a defendant in a court hall. This
cage, however, is made of knitted fabric, as if it were made with a crochet
hook. This work acts as a reminder of the criminal prosecution of social
activists in the Ukraine today. Artists were forced to be present at lots of
court meetings together with other public representatives so as to make the
court processes transparent and attract public attention. Knitting is a metaphor
for the time spent in court, which can be seen as form of punishment in its own
right because of the undetermined duration of the proceedings. The soft material
with which the cage is knitted provides a certain kind of comfort against the
everyday repression for those who don’t have any alternative.
Galerie Transit
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