TRANS> area: Marine Hugonnier
by NY Arts
This request gave me the opportunity to rethink, in a context of political and social imperatives, the role of artistic activity. After spending some time envisaging what a gesture in response to Camera Austria would require (a rethink of my relationship to History), I decided to invite a women, who had been part of one of the orchestras in the concentration camps to come and play a piece of music of her choice which would be broadcast live on the Austrian
national radio channel, O1.
I spent long months doing research which led me to meet a few survivors. I’m not sure that, for the first meetings, I was particularly convincing. Many of them wanted to forget. This raised the question of programmed memory loss and collective amnesia concerning history. These first meetings discouraged me for a time. I suddenly realized that there was certain legitimacy in the desire to forget – my own grandfather had never wanted to talk to me about what happened to him, pushing his refusal to confront the past to the point of never even going to see a war film at the cinema. I remained
convinced, however, that it was still possible to confront this
history with our everyday existence.
In parallel, I read a few books on technology and its development in
the 20th century in order to consider once more the complex
relationship that exists between technological progress and the
architecture of the "final solution" of the concentration camps.
Then, one day, I received a response from a woman called Anna
Hanusova, who lived in Brno in former Czechoslovakia. Anna Hanusova
had been imprisoned from the age of 11 to the age of 15. She quickly
stood out due to her natural gift for music, which she practiced
regularly before the war. At Teresin, she was part of a trio known as
the "Trio Room 28". Music had saved her from despair and fear,
especially when the regime became tougher in 1943, when, since the
infrastructure was not adapted for mass exterminations, entire groups
were deported to Auschwitz.
Anna accepted the invitation to come to Vienna and play a piano piece
to be broadcast live on the radio. She understood the implications of
her action perfectly in the context of Austria and the coalition
government whose formation had surprised many in 1999. She took care
to choose a piece, which reflected what she would have expressed in
words.
The video recording, which was filmed during the live broadcast on
national radio O1 of Anna Hanusova’s performance, includes images of
Vienna. This images show the International Atomic Energy Authority,
the UN building, the oil refinery (Olraffinerie Schwechat), the Sony
and Microsoft buildings, the big wheel (the Riesenrad) and the Prater
amusement park surrounding it, the Karl Marx Hof, a cinema in Vienna
and the number 05 which the symbol of resistance in Austria. These
various images, which punctuate the film, enable me to go beyond the
political conflict specific to Austria and to place the event in an
international context. These different images are to be seen as signs
of our contemporary world at the dawn of cybernetics, nanotechnology,
biotechnology and the mapping of DNA. "
Marine Hugonnier
"Marine Hugonnier’s artworks are infused with her long-standing
interest in the discipline of anthropology. They focus on and act out
the differences between one type of perception and another:
specifically the historical, social, and political ramifications of
how we deal with our orientation in the present moment. That
Hugonnier’s work does this makes it a covertly socio-political
statement that refuses, and seeks to short-circuit in viewers on a
one-by-one basis, the consensus of unthinking forward motion, routine
of distraction, and easy amnesia prevalent amongst the occupants of
big cities. Making works which consistently pull off this trick means
never using the same aesthetic approach twice: over the past few
years Hugonnier has slowly but steadily constructed an expandix of
quiet unassuming and discrete works which viewers are bounced in slow
motion, re-orientated and ref-framed in case by the slow, surprising
transmission of the artwork’s qualities and its pervasive effect on
their perceptual abilities."
Martin Herbert, Today is Yesterday’s tomorrow from Marine Hugonnier, CGAC, 2001
Marine Hugonnier was born in Paris in 1969 and grew up in the United
States and France; lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions of her
work have been organized by Centro Galego de Arte Contempor�nea,
Santiago de Compostela, Spain; Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam;
Kerstin Engholm Gallery, Vienna; Chantal Crousel Gallery, Paris and
MW projects in London. Her group exhibitions have included Spiritus,
Magasin 3, Stockholm Konsthall; Travers�es, l’ARC, Mus�e d’art
Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Squatters, Fundacão de Serralves,
Porto, Portugal; Beau Monde: Toward a Redeemed Cosmopolitanism, Site
Santa Fe’s Fourth, International Biennial, New Mexico; My Generation,
Atlantis Gallery, London; Movimientos Inmoviles, Museo de Arte
Moderno, Buenos Aires; and Marine Hugonnier & Henrik Plenge Jakobson,
Centre d’Art Neuch�tel, Neuch�tel, Swizterland.
Hugonnier’s exhibition at TRANS>area will be her first solo
exhibition after her work was included for the first time in a group
exhibition in United States at the 4th Site Santa Fe biennial.
She is currently working on a project which she began in summer 2002
in Afghanistan. This body of work includes a series of photographs
and a film and is in development with MW projects, London and Film
and Video Umbrella, London. The project questions ideas of democracy
and utopia and will be shown at the Chisenhale Gallery, London and MW
projects, London in April 2003; and at Chantal Crousel Gallery, Paris
in March 2003.
In TRANS>arts.cultures.media an essay by Michael Newman will be
published in TRANS>11
TRANS> area is a non-profit exhibition space with the support of
Public Art Found for equipment
Marine Hugonnier "Anna Hanusova. 27.06.01, 5:40"
November 23 – December 29, 2002
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 23, 6 – 8 pm
TRANS> area
511 West 25th Street, 502
New York, NY 10001
Phone: 646.486.0252
trans@transmag.org
www.transmag.org
TRANS> area is pleased to present Marine Hugonnier’s first solo
exhibition in New York with the film Anna Hanusova, 27.06.01,5:40.
