&I<3U2
Artists: Indrani Ashe, Agata Bogacka, Sophie Calle, Teresa Gierzyńska, Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo, Jolanta Marcolla, Natasza Niedziółka, Ania Nowak, Ewa Partum, Fabiana Sala, Kama Sokolnicka, Maria Stangret, Ewa Surowiec, Allison L. Wade
14.02 – 3.05.2020
Photo: Remi Urant
Exhibition design: Krzysztof Skoczylas
The six characters that make up the title, abstract signs it would seem, can be read as a sentence in English: “And I love you too.” Modern-day communication is becoming more and more condensed and straightforward, and the use of emojis brings to mind a return to pictograms and the beginnings of writing. All you need to express your feelings or share a deeply personal message is to tap on a few symbols on smartphone.
This development is the starting point of the exhibition. Foregrounding one perspective – the female one – &I<3U2 explores how women artists speak about love, feelings, their own bodies, their sensuality and other private experiences.
&I<3U2 relates several generations of artists: beginning with Maria Stangret (born in 1929), we then move on to artists born in the 1940s and 50s, concluding with women who launched their artistic careers in the age of the Internet and social media.
The exhibition presents works from the 1970s (Jolanta Marcolla, Teresa Gierzyńska, Ewa Partum). Due to their unusual character and themes, some of them were rarely presented to the public, or they were placed in contexts that foreclosed any possibility of them being read in their full complexity. We also include brand new works (Indrani Ashe, Fabiana Sala, Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo) marked by openness and a readiness to transgress taboos through straightforward messages.
This exhibition celebrates the artist as a person and her attitude as a woman who actively and uncompromisingly analyses her experiences, rejecting her traditionally passive role. At the same time the exhibition questions the boundary between the private and the public, between what is intimate and what is social. The taboo of feminine modesty is broken. For these women artists, the search for a language to express their most private experiences entails not only questions about identity but also about the social meaning of desire, sex and love relationships, as well as of loneliness and separation.
Partner: Goethe-Institut, Warsaw
Funded by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe
Exhibition brochure available here