It is true!

Elena Bajo (Berlin – NYC)

Courtesy of the Artist and ArtLabour

Nothing more than a theatre of fluctuating ideas and echoes of future moments (a new refutation of time) II, 2009

Performance, Installation

Dimensions variable

Elena Bajo juxtaposes in her performance, installation and video-art work the identities of prefigured spaces and dimensions, creating a sometimes cryptic but always revealing new code of signifiers.

Teresa María Díaz Nerio (Amsterdam – Santo Domingo)

Courtesy of the Artist, Galerie Nelson-Freeman and ArtLabour

Hommage á Sara Bartman, 2007

Performance

Photo: Florian Kleinefenn

Teresa María Díaz Nerio deconstructs in her performance “Hommage á Sara Bartman” (2008) the female body from a  historical perspective, redefining the fetishisms on the Black woman´s body in contemporary Europe.

Linda Franke (Berlin)

Courtesy of the Artist

Balletbaum (Ballet Tree), 2009

Single channel video

12:12 loop,  sound

In the video-art animation Balletbaum (Ballet Tree, 2009), Linda Franke exposes the intimacy of 10 individuals in the toilet, tooth-brushing,  going to bed, cooking, etc. They repeat their individual actions constantly, but between each sequence they synchronize together to the music of a big band, reminiscent of Hollywood in the 50′s, in a simple and charming choreography. Every action takes place in the branch of a tree.

Katya Gardea-Browne (Mexico City – Berlin)

Courtesy of the Artist and ArtLabour

Tijuana Girl Crossing, 2007

Single channel 8 ½ mm / DV Cam

5:04 loop,  sound

Katya Gardea-Browne documents in “Tijuana Girl Crossing” (2007) the week-long roaming of a girl from Los Angeles at the US-Mexico border. Her figure travels the screen but it is never completely defined. The artist reflects upon our tendency in seeing ourselves within architecture and in urban settings.  In her work, the use of photography and the register of landscape operates as a link between abstraction and  self documentation of a transient experience. She researches in between contexts exploring different landscapes using video and installations in architectural and public spaces, departing from the relationship between the ‘identity sphere’, architecture and the body.

Andrea Loux (Bern – Berlin)

Courtesy of the Artist and ArtLabour

Power   Games (Gun Girls), 2007

Series of 6, Edition 1/3

C-print, mixed media on paper, 48 x 30 cm each

Andrea Loux recycles in “Power Games (Gun Girls)” (2007) Internet imagery, aiming at the naturalization of violence in the US. Teenagers show proudly the size and caliber of their rifles and guns while sporting polished red nails. The subjects are then subverted and transformed into a target with the almost imperceptible intervention of the artist in the reverse side of the image, assisted by silver nail polish.

Alanna Lockward (Berlin – Santo Domingo)

Courtesy of the Artist and ArtLabour

Hair A(u)ction Facebook (2008-2009)

Performance, Curatorial Hair Object

Photo by Katya Gardea-Browne

Performance Documentation by Maike Beissner

hair auction (2008-2009) is a work-in-progress developed intuitively with the aim of re-defining the performative role of the curator in her relationship with artists. Alanna Lockward has been writing and living, sometimes simultaneously, both experiences for quite a while. This piece was initiated by the intimate shaving of Lockward´s hair and is becoming “art” with the timely Facebook-intervention of artist Katya Gardea-Browne, curator of this piece.

IngridMwangiRobertHutter (Ludwigshafen – Nairobi)

Courtesy of the Artist and ArtLabour

Cryptic. A Traveller’s Diary, 2007

Single channel video

15:04  loop, sound

IngridMwangiRobertHutter has created in “Cryptic. A Traveler’s Diary” (2007) a reflection on the phenomenon of the traveling artist. Writing is interpreted as drawing; the act of creating lines, marks and signs that remain as a trace. Spontaneous performance actions were recorded with video on various sites during a year‘s travels. The imagery shot in Nairobi, Tokyo, Heights of Aripo in Trinidad, Western Desert of Egypt and Dakar merge within the video to dream-like sequences in which action and outcome remain a mystery.

Rachelle Mozman (NYC – Panama)

Courtesy of the Artist and ArtLabour

Raquel, 2006

C-Print, 52.2  x 71.1 cm

For American Exurbia and Costa del Este (2006), Rachelle Mozman photographed children within their homes in newly developed Exurbia, in New Jersey and in Panama City. These photographs explore the global relationship between cultures, capitalism, and its effect on identity and community.

Raquel Paiewonsky (Santo Domingo)

Courtesy of the Artist, Centro León and ArtLabour

Curada, 2007

Six photos printed on paper, 71  x 106  cm each

Curada (2007) is part of a series of photographs of Haitian people living in the Dominican Republic. Both countries share the only island in the Caribbean with a national border and the historic conflict between them is currently focus on immigration. Raquel Paiewonsky covers the bodies of a Haitian family with band-aids, in Spanish ‘curitas’, which inspires the title. This element, attached to a thin layer of stockings, surrounds the body as a symbol for pain and for healing.