GABRIELE SENN GALERIE curated by Jörg Heiser & Sarah Khan
„Frighteningly topical | Erschreckend aktuell“

4.9. - 2.10.2021 Press release

GABRIELE SENN GALERIE, Schleifmühlgasse 1a, 1040 Vienna
www.galeriesenn.at

Curator(s):

Jörg Heiser & Sarah Khan More

Jörg Heiser is an art critic, curator, teacher, and musician. He is Director of the Institute for Art in Context, Dean and a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts in Berlin. For twenty years, he worked as an editor for frieze magazine. Since 1997 he writes for Süddeutsche Zeitung, and continues to write for numerous outlets including Art Agenda, Die Republik etc. His books include All of a Sudden. Things that Matter in Contemporary Art (2008) and Double Lives in Art and Pop Music (2019). Since 2004 he has curated numerous group exhibitions including Romantic Conceptualism (2007-8, Kunsthalle Nuremberg and Bawag Foundation Vienna, catalogue), Nuit Blanche Monaco 2016, and he was co-curator of the Busan Biennale 2018 in South Korea. The second album of the band La Stampa, a member of which he is, has been released 2018 by Vinyl Factory, London.

Courtesy of Jörg Heiser & Sarah Khan

Artist(s):

Saâdane Afif
Sue Williams
Judith Bernstein
Young-jun Tak
Monica Bonvicini
Richard Hoeck
General Idea
Rosie Gibbens
Ronald Kodritsch
Marko Lulić
Katrin Plavcak
Slavs and Tatars
Stefanie Sargnagel

Exhibition text

More

Erschreckend aktuell | Frighteningly topical

Berlin-based couple Jörg Heiser and Sarah Khan have long been concerned with comedy and humor in art, literature, and film. Because humor can be a method of exposure (indecent or not), just as exposure is a method of humor, the theme of the show was to be narrowed down to forms of “genital comedy.” “Genital comedy” was then also initially the working title. Nudity, body taboos, gender characteristics, and gender oddities no longer seem to be topics that contemporary artists want to deal with intensively or comprehensively. The de-tabooization and the permanent commercial use of body characteristics, especially female ones, seemingly leaves little room to approach the subject in an interesting way. What strategies and responses have yet to be consumed in this field? And what self-statements do artists risk when they turn to the subject?

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