Galerie Krinzinger & Krinzinger Schottenfeld curated by Katya García-Antón
„ Interieurs, Modelle“

* 1966 in London, lives and works in Zurich Katya García-Antón is an independent curator working with art, design and architecture. She worked at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London; BBC World Service, London; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Museu de Arte Moderno, Sao Pãulo; IKON Birmingham, GB; and Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève (director 2002–2011). She was in the editorial committee for Third Text (2000–2002). She curated the Spanish Pavilions of the Venice Biennale 2011 and the São Paulo Biennale 2004, and co-curated Days Like These, Prague Biennale 2005. In November 2012 Katya García- Antón will launch Gestures in Time (curated with Lara Khaldi), the flagship exhibition of Qalandia International, a new biennial festival for international visual arts in Palestine (directed by Jack Persekian).

A Letter to Ulrike

Zurich, July 15, 2012

Dear Ulrike,

Is there an optimal way to have sex? I ask you this in the light of a new series of drawings

that you told me you will include in your next exhibition Interieurs, Modelle. They refer to a sex

manual published in 1965 for young couples. It’s a rather sinister thought, is it not, to consider

the possibility that we should all be uniform and efficient sex performers?

In previous works you have looked into the infiltration of business values, such as high performance,

into elite sports training as well as into our public perceptions of self. And you have explored

modes of rebellion against this, through the idea of personal filth. What is striking about

this new exhibition is that you propose a more introspective mapping of the body and its performance.

In the video Run, two racing twins could be interpreted as shadows of each other’s performance,

thereby setting the scene for the mental space implicit in the title of the show. The drawings that

point to private sexual regulation will be hung next to a new s et of objects reminiscent of go-go

poles. Usually pole dancing takes place in the semi-private space of the club, where the customer

is looking for a fit body and an optimal performance. Notwithstanding the fantasy of transgression,

go-go dancing is as regulated as sport itself.

The sexual and the erotic were perhaps the last spaces left for experimenting with individuality.

Perhaps they have already fallen?

Yours cordially,

Katya