KATHARINA SIEVERDING: IRRESISTABLE HISTORICAL CURRENT (#3)
By Horace Brockington
The late 90’s work, which anticipates the large installation "Metamorphosis of Evolution" in the 2002, finds Sieverding exploring technical and scientific imagery including x-rays, computer scans and detailed pictures from genetic research. Crystallization of blood used for diagnostic purposes in alternative medicine provides a point of departure for an entire series. In the works Seiverding probes the relationship between the photographic "document "and the presumed reality it records. Starting with reproductions, the artists executed unique works, produced through complex processes These works were presented as montage and other manipulations presents in darkrooms which lent an added dimension to this exploration.
"Crystallization" These works taken from study of blood result in technical —scientific images taken from the sphere of medicine, such as images of blood coagulation or sequences of sample taken from gene research. Blown in large-scale formats these works become almost abstract images. The series continues to address the concept of transformation and metamorphosis that have been key aspects of her work, but now on a scientific level. Commenting on the development of the crystallized images. Sieverding has stated:
" The crystal imagery is a development on a very personal experience. The crystallization images go back to a situation where I need blood transfusions in order to survive. During the process I came across different methods for establishing blood groups. Because of all the transfusions I had to wait for some time until my blood could reflect my organism. That was my introduction to these matters…. I see the work as anti-artistic reflections of organic and unorganic signature and radiation. One works on the assumption that these are formative forces at work in human beings, affecting psychologically mental, or spiritual qualities, every thing that makes a person over and above the mere quantitative…. I always use size as a way of revealing the idea that lies behind the work–microcosm and macrocosm—. Some people find this incomprehensible, other find it fascinating…then they find a way into the methods…the way there, the effort made, that is the important thing."
2000s
"Metamorphosis of Evolution" a large-scale installation commissioned by Casa di—Goethe, Rome, focused on the scientific collection of Johann Wolfgang van Goethe and on his scientific visions and aspects of l8th century botanical studies. In Sieverding’s installation the artist fused Goethe collection with the dramatic past of the Weimar Republic. Her aim being to explore the concept of metamorphosis developed by Goethe. "Metamorphosis " is a pivotal work for the artist as it is the first time Sieverding is dealing with sculptural and cultural artifacts as ready-mades.
Sieverding selected significant pieces from Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s private collection in Weimar, which comprised at least 50,000 objects. She installed the works at Goethe’s former home on the Corso, bringing them into relationship with her own work. For the project Sieverding opted for Goethe’s scientific legacy. After several visits to the Stiftung Weimar Klassik (Foundation for Weimar Classicism) she selected over 1500 objects representing what the artist describes as "the four realms of nature: mineral, plants, animals, and man". Sieverding juxtaposed these objects from to reflect on the beginning of modern biology, among which are to be found botanical studies, minerals, and animals, and human skulls, in contrast to new works of her own created specifically for the exhibition, a large projected installation.
Sieverding’s large format beam projection and multimedia installation is juxtaposed with Goethe’s collections resulting from her examination of Goethe’s fundamental scientific convictions explores metamorphosis both in technique and content. Sieverding was particularly concern in this exhibition with Goethe’s view of nature and its domain. She attempts to assimilate this view through her own mediums. The artist has stated that she wanted to play off of the primary and secondary relationship between the principles of metamorphosis and the principle and construction of art.
The work is divided into four rooms:
Room One: is filled with minerals that Johan Wolfgang Goethe collected during his travels. The artist based on her own research into crystals may have chosen many of the objects. She has also cited theories of Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), the Austrian philosophers, scientist and educator who was deeply affected by Goethe’s writings that impacted her selection.3
Room Two: consist of a group of skulls, including a cranium allegedly attributed to Anthony van Dyck, or Raphael. In this room Sieverding references both the death heads of her artistic mentor Andy Warhol, and the art historical tradition of momento mori. She alludes to the theory of necrology and notions of race and class that were increasingly tied to scientific studies which scholars such as Charles Lebrun investigated in late l8th century France, and continues through the scientific formulations of Goethe, culminating in discriminatory and racial theories of type developed indirectly by photographers such as August Sander and finally by scientific racism of Nazi Germany.
Room Three: Sieverding has installed in a dim lit room a group of drawings all execute in Goethe’s own hand. These drawings range from studies of anatomy, facial expression, skeletons, and exotic fauna such tulips or "Wunderkammer"curios. The drawings Seiverding has selected are also representative of categories of organic life as if to comment on the relation of man to animal to plant.
Room Four: Here the artist encapsulates the flux between past and present, between Goethe and herself and between herself and her context as an artist. Sieverding positions a video installation that deals technically in term of the content with the time of metamorphosis. This crucial theme binds the legacy of Goethe with our own time. Sieverding shows an image culled from her research n Weimer at and the Stiftung Weimaer Klassik. Projected by a "beamer", the static image is manipulated so a to appear in an almost cinematic state. It is further altered so that although we still recognize the essence, its manipulations counts equally for what has been described as indicative of the present. In a time of genetically modifications and germ warfare, cosmetic manipulated bodies and medically elongated live; Seiverding references the god and bad of genetic/scientific alteration.
Light is an important part in the complete installation. In the first two rooms the windows onto the inner court re opened so that daylight and sun can illuminate them. Such they penetrate both inside and out. In the third room artificial light is dimmed. In the fourth room in which her work is contained, the space is completely dark with the exception of the beamer projector over an accompanying mirror.
Commenting on the work, Sieverding has stated:
"It is a highly interactive concept and a challenge to transform into an exhibition the complex idea of the metamorphosis–principle of polarization —of contradiction and expansion, induction and deduction —in order to modernize the paradigm of evolution making it into a paradigm of metaphysical evolution"4
"The Visual Studies" Series consist of new large-scale photographic works. . The c-prints images attempt to comment on pressing and immediate concerns of a global society faced with aggression, increasing terrorism, and breakdown in interhuman communication. "The Visual Studies" combined the artist’s interest in appropriation with a radical reworking of her chosen images. The prints are large- scale, multipaneled digital composites that repeat and enlarge images to the point of abstraction provoking the viewer’s personal interpretation of the imagery. These works challenge the viewers to arrive at their own conclusion. In the recent years Sieverding has refused to make statements about the work. The main subject in the early part of the series appears to be a gun, which materializes in the series of c-prints.
"Visual Studies": from the surfaces emerges a camouflage-wearing figure with a large weapon slung across its shoulder. Halfway down the work, the black and green grain shifts to crimson blood hue. The complicated montage of "Visual Studies" III depicts a torso of a person pointing a revolver. "Visual Studies" II and IV are identical silhouettes and appear in different manifestations of positive/negative, large/small. Glowing shades of orange and yellow flicker around the edges." Visual Studies" VI suggest flames that illuminates what appear an image in a cage, in another part of the image, two bearded figures, one turbaned peer out of a window, the word "Death" is also discernable.
For over thirty years Sieverding has worked mainly with the photographic medium exploiting its infinite reproductive capacity as well as it potential for expanding perception. Principally culling well circulated images from mass- media, she duplicates them alters them drawing attention to the mechanism of the reproduction in what has been described as a system of codification to pull the viewer’s awareness of removed from actual, lived experience.
Sieverding views large format works as a way to develop as something more ambivalent and complex, linked principally with large format surface of history painting. Her starting point is not primarily a look at the media world and mass media rather she is trying to re-define processes. From the first time she turned in l975 to using this approach for Sieverding large format photographs is the language in which she create social and political statements. She views the work as anti-theatrical despite the physical presence. In front of her images she wants to reverse the theatrical, such that the public becomes autonomous. She works from historical elements so that at certain levels the images have a meaning from the past. But the past is never an ends in itself, the works re often overlain with a quality that relates to the future, thus the historical context only becomes a starting point for a completely different statement.
Despite her conceptual background, her art is affected by theory only to a limited extent. She has stated that she finds conflict important in art, but does not need the works to be based on theoretical discussions. The works can equally be sensual as possible.
@Horace Brockington 2004
"Katharina Sieverding " open at PS. 1 Contemporary Art Center, New York October 19-31,2004 Curated by PS1 Director Alanna Heiss with Assistant Curator Amy Smith Stewart and Daniel Marzona. The project will include more than three decades of highly influential work, including photography, film and video. The exhibition travels to National Gallery, Berlin
Selective Bibliography:
"Photography in Contemporary German Art: 1960 to the Present" Gary Garrels, ed., Walker Art Center, Minn. 1992
"Katharine Sieverding: Metamorphosis of Evolution, Ursula Bongaerts, et Al, and Charta Editions
"Katharina Sieverding", Kunsthalle Budapest.
"’Self Portrait of Contemporary Women "Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, 1990
‘ Katharina Sieverding: "Weltlinie" Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin and M’’ucsarnok, Kunsthalle, Budapest, 1999
Sieverding, Katharina, "Sieverding: Katalog-Konzeption, Redaktion"Katharina Sieverding, Klaus Mettig, Annelie Pohlen, 1992
Sieverding, Katharina, "Grossfotos I_X/75-77"
"Katharina Sieverding: Ausstellung in der Galerie Barbara Gross, "1990
"Katharina Sieverding: Kristallisationsbilder ", 1992
Sieverding, Katharina, Bonner Kunsterverin (ed), Bonn, 1992
‘Sieverding, Katharina: Stadt —Sparkase Dusseldorf "
"Katharinr Sieverding:" Nationale Galerie, Berlin, Berlin 1992
"Katharina Sieverding: Edition Fotohof", Salzburg, 1996
‘Katarina Sieverding" Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Forderungsstiftung (ed.), Berlin, l983
Sieverdung, Katharina:" Katharina Sieverding: Bilder aus d. Zyklen XXVIII-XI", Karlsruhe: Bad. Kunstverein, 1987
Sieverding, Katharina, "Katharina Sieverding, eine Installation." Regegensburg: Museum Ostadt, Galerie, 1993
Sieverding, Katharina,"Katarina Sieverding" Monchengladbach, Stadt Museum Abteiberg, 1984
"Katharina Sieverding: 1967-1997 "/ hrsg.v. Rudi H.Fushs, Koln, Oktagon —Verl, 1997
"Katharina Sieverding", Stedlijk Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam/Kunstsammlung Nordrherin_Westfalen, Dusseldorf (ed), Koln, 1997
Blessing, Jennifer "Rrose is a Rrose Is a Rrose ", Guggenheim Museum, NY 1997
Sabibe Breitweiser (ed.) "Re-Play"’Koln, 2001
"Face a l’Histoire, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France (1996)
‘Lost Paradise Lost", Mark Uskirche, Hannover
"’Insight ", Galerie Vocher
‘Solomon-Godeau, Abigail, " The Face of Difference" published in Katharina Sievderding; Ene Installation "(op- cit)
Coulson, A."Katharina Sieverding", "Visual Studies " Art on Paper v. 7. No 4. (Jan-Feb 2003) p. 80-1
Hess, B. "Katharina Sieverding: the collective impact of large-format photographs (interview) Flash Art (International Edition) v.32 no. 204 (Jan/Feb 199) p. 80-3
Galloway D. Katharina Sierverding" Art News v. 97 no. 4 (April 1998) p. 191
Butler, S " Subject to Change " Women’s Art Magazine no. 59 (1994) p. 22-6
"Deutschland wird deutscher" (Art Reproduction) Art In America v. 81 (October 1993) p. 42
Hixson K. "Through the lens darkly " New Art Examiner V. 19 (June/Summer 1992) p. 21-5
Jhan W. "Galerie Jurgen Becker Hamburg" Artforum v. 29 (Feb. 1991) p.139
(Untitled four faces)(Art reproduction) Flash Art (International Edition) no. 148 (October 1989) p.94
Hermes, M. ‘Repetition, disguises, documents: how photography has pervaded two decades of contemporary German Art " Flash Art (International edition) no. 148 (October, 1989) p 97-103
