Reinterpretation
In the “Wir Sind Schmutz” project, I will work with the archive of the Magnus Hirschfeld Gesellschaft in Berlin. In my art, I have always been working with the reinterpretation of historical material. One of the earliest is from 2001. Here I was working with the famous Muybridge photographs of animals and people in movement. In his photographs, Muybridge used a very early stop motion technique to freeze time, making it possible to see each step of a movement. It was in the interest of science, the interest of artist, he said. But when I saw the naked men and women jumping, fighting and crawling in front of the camera, I wondered if an element of voyeurism and domination was not also hidden motives in taking the photos.
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In the first works I made from the Muybridge photographs, I used the people in the photographs as building blocks in surreal, geometric patterns. A comment on the objectification of the original photographs, but also a way of setting the people free from the scientific experiment. In the work shown here, the shyness and shame of the woman in the photo is made visible, and turned into whirling, colourful stars.
