KATHARINA SIEVERDING: IRRESISTABLE HISTORICAL CURRENT (#2)
By Horace Brockington
In her early works the extended self-portraits of her face filing the frame —close to the lens, eyes staring directly into the camera proposed implication for the viewers. By changing light shifting focus and altering her make-up Sierverding created what has been described as " phantasmagoric series of characters…relentless, confrontational and frightening but also seductive and vulnerable."10 In much of the 70s and 80s works the artist has attempted to isolate psychic states outside of social and cultural frames or historical identifications. The resulting images are portraits of female personally hidden by masks that cannot be removed. They are always controlled contrived images of an interior state.
Reflecting on the artist’s work, A. Solomon-Godeau has noted, " It’s of some consequence that Sieverding as a women art, should have the termity not only to represent herself as an icon but a monumental one at that. What is most suggestive is Katharina Sieverding’s impassive self representation in fact their very impassivity in which her own images appears technical manipulatibe of image and color that produces an uncanny effect of mask and masquerade. Katharina Siverding’s consistent exploration of the gap between feminine visage and ambiguous identity suggests affinities with what Cornel West has called the new cultural politics of difference, including the notion of a collective and explicitly political forms of self representations offering, unlike classic self portrait, not so much the revelation of a singular self, but evocations and retrievals of a historical, cultural and political self. It is therefore precisely this assimilation and refiguration of the personal into the social and historical, and the problematizing of individual self that I want to propose an important paradigm for representing women who represents, and further feminist project- the embodiment, the giving form to women’s experience and subjectivity."13
Non-photographers to function as art can situate in relation to conceptual art and in an interest in the capacity of photography Sieverding’s early works.
Some of her earliest works re the series of self- portraitures presented as mutation of her faces. Often these faces reflected on issues of gender that would be an important aspect of the thematic concerns of art in the 80s and 90s.
However from the beginning she has not been afraid to touch upon controversial subjects evident in her "Adaption zu XI" /1978", a photographic negative of terrorists with "Schlachfeld Deutschland" (Slaughter Yard Germany) as its text banner. Her early activist photographs stands in contrast to the hagiographic portraits of Beuys that were taken on by fellow Dusseldorf photographer Ute Klophaus. From Beuys the artist has taken his passionate defense of the role of art as a social and political transformer and the importance of documentation as a form of art.
During the period many of the multiple identical images panel covered entire walls, consisting of photographs, scanned and enlarged manipulated images, many often on the verge of illegibility. The images had an atmosphere of threat repression or outright violence. Installed over large walls, often laid across another the entire ensemble was bathed in colored light.
An installation Sieverding created in l977 for the Museum Folkway, Essen consisted of lager scale photos looked at race and ethnic identities. The installation revealed the cinematic quality of her large-scale photographic series and is indicative of an approach that she would pursue over the next wt decades.
"Life/Death", 1969 is Sieverding’s pioneering film and photographic work. The project consists of 42 one by one meter C-prints in steel frames accompanied by video. The video mediates on the polar extremes often found in our daily existence. The artist uses her face as the departure for this investigation. At one point in the film, Sieverding stares at her own reflection in a tablespoon of honey as it spills onto her bare legs. In order to agitate the viewer’s perceptions of themselves, she articulates precisely how it is she sees herself: as an extreme, sexual and powerful agent scrutinizing the politics of being an individual during a period of great institutional unrest. In another scene, Sieverding offers potent images of her face and hands as they appear and disappear in an undulating crimson cloth, an effect created by using her weathered red coat. Sieverding has stated that her face provides a screen on which to project infinite perspectives, thoughts and emotions. The work contains a line of text that reads; "Expressing uncertainty correctly and genuinely". She has noted that Uncertainty is phenomenon that interests her in art practice. Expressing certainty, incorrectly and ungenuinely. This uncertainty express lack of definiteness enables the viewer to make decisions and develop opinions through their own authority. The "Life/ Death project establish the stage for Sieverding ‘s subsequent works and has widely influenced international contemporary art practices.
"To Behold the Midnight Sun"(1973) a work from the period offers a self portrait presented as an extreme close-up of her face abstracted with bronze powder or makeup.
"Transformer" (1973) speaks to the ability of personality to transform oneself. The series created between l973-l974 addresses gender constructions.5
In l974 Swiss curator Jean Christopher Ammann organized the exhibitions " Transfromer: Aspekte der Traveste" that attempted to link manifestations of cross dressing in popular music and contemporary art.6 The exhibition takes its title from Lou reed l973 album "Transformer " produced by David Bowie. By referring to the title of Reed’s album, Ammann was acknowledging Reed’s reputation as the songwriters of drag queens given the "Transformer" album contained the hit drag anthem " Walk on the Wild’ and included such other potent songs as "Vicious", "Andy’s Chest", Satellite of Love", and "Perfect ". 9 Reed’s album was viewed as the embodiment of personal and sexual liberation, for a generation fascinated by gender ambiguity and seeking pleasure. 14 Ammann’s exhibition was exclusively concerned with male to female cross-dressing and conceived of the female impersonations as a model for artistic exploration of gender ambiguity, by specifically — a male born subject .7 It was positioned on the notion of a revolt against traditional masculinity as represented by conservative. It championed gay liberation most in its implicit especially visible means as way of asserting identity. The premise of the exhibition was therefore the conception of travesty as a creative act as a means of expressing the self as multiple and critique narrow definitions of masculinity.
The word "transformer" was imported by these young artists to describe the act of transcending binary definitions with Jurgen Klauke and Sieverding using the word as the title of their works. Work by Duchamp appears in the "Transformer" catalogue in the context of Sieverding’s portfolio of photographic self-portraits in which a detail of Duchamp’s " Etant Donnes" is reproduced with the caption " aux grandes Etonnes/m Duchamp"8
Included in the exhibition was Sieverding’s " Transformer " series a work has been described as a desire for a utopian conception of androgyny in which the artist would embody a unified ambisexuality or realize a perfect union with their lover. The artist photographic based work is indicted to covey that her and her lover appear almost identical.
Reflecting on "Transformer", Sieverding has stated that in those days the predominate climate was that people identified themselves as distinct from the opposite sex. Even Feminism and the woman’s movement found emancipation in making distinction and concentrated on themselves:
" Perhaps I have simply been aware all my life that I am a woman biologically, culturally and socially, but I was able to put myself in the so-called masculine position. I needed to do this to understand the opposite point of view, and I expected the converse effort to be made. This work emerged from the "zeitgeist" then, and my entirely personal experience. It is a series based on the "motor camera: concept. This result is the interface of the indefinite cross —gender."12
80s
In the 1980s Sieverding returned to self-portraiture creating close cropped and abstracted works that are connected to mask-like image she produced in the 1960s and early 1970s. The l980s portraits have been described as cool and stylized distant and aloof. They show figures of a demimonde inhabiting a world of darkness. The faces are masked by make-up through out of the darkness by colored light, recalling vision of the Berlin cabarets between the wars. However, rather than being isolated images the faces are now fused into stripes, reducing the individuality of each portrait. They are combined into enormous overall composition of black, red, and gold. While the early 80s portraits are like film stills, but the late 80s portraits resemble filmstrips.
In the 1980s Sieverding’s large photographic compositions display mass rituals and media icons. They are much more abstract than the earlier billboards —like photographs. In both the large, composites and late self-portraits and in the scale, the scenes are hallucinogenic views into darkness with burst of light. Thematically, they embrace history, the apocalypse, and salvation. The works reveal the Sieverding working again with issues that had emerged in the l960s, including the role of interpreting art and the influence of popular culture on artists.
90s.
From 1990 to 1992 Sieverding was visiting professor at Hochschule fur Bildende Kunstle in Hamburg. This was a very fruitful period for the artists. In 1992 Sieverding moved to Berlin to teach at the Hochschule der Kunste and a year later executed the controversial billboard project for the Kunstwerke, Berlin. "Deutschland wird Deutscher".
"Deutschland wird deutscher" (Germany is becoming more German) was installed in 500 locations around Berlin including rail stations, such as the Alexanderplats subway station The billboard — size print depicted a black and white image of a women’s face surrounded by knives arranged as if thrown by a circus performers. In large text superimposed on the image was a headline taken from a German newspaper: "Deutschland wird deutscher" (Germany is becoming more German). Not surprisingly the work caused a heated debated amongst artists and the citizens of Berlin. It was interpreted by many viewers as a comment on the rekindling of xenophobia in response to Germany’s growing immigrant population. Many of the billboards were defaced or removed. Commenting on the Project the Artists has stated:
"That is definitely a public work. It was actually intended to be shown as part of the "Platezverfuhrung" (Seduction in a Public Place) Project in the Stuttgart region. But that didn’t come off, because of the various reasons. I hesitated showing the work, knowing it couldn’t be brought off on the level of quality… I had initially planned-layers of aluminum on other metal, printed with non fading pigments."
Then the situation of hostility to foreigners intensified in Germany. At this point the Sieverding got involved stipulating two conditions —that the sponsors be visible and that the image be presented 500times in public spaces. These conditions were intended to intensify the "uncertainty" about the contest.
The image ultimately caused a great scare and attracted criticism for the artist ambivalence and the question remains. Does the image really mean that Germany is becoming more radical right wing? At the point where the image met the public and was associated with advertising aesthetics and programs was enlightening for the artists mainly because the works had always been about advertising for something but indefinite as to what for.
She was chosen by a jury to fill the renovated Reichstag in Berlin. "Manhnmal" (Monumental, 1996) is a monumental photograph of a solar eruption. Sieverding envisioned work as a memorial to the persecution in l933 of non-Nazi members of the parliament. Conceptually, the work is intended to explore the country past and present political history.
In 1997 Sieverding was chosen to represent Germany at the Venice Bienale. Still, Sieverding continued to create several series of self-portraiture.
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