Review | For this project, K ...

Generated on 2020-11-19 03:09:07

Result #1

she sees herself, although she has yet to fully acknowledge her own presence in the work. In this work, the public sees something of a bruise—of her own—and her individuated presence is expressed through a silhouette, a single, distorted face. For K, it seems, I see myself in everything that exists; I see the bruise, my face, my bruise, my bruise.For the very notion of subjectivity, K invents her own individual self, which she gives a second, autonomous identity. For the avatar of those identities, who is to be remembered as K, Ks self becomes the true individual, and the work is an affirmation of individuality, a positive affirmation.

Result #2

the absence of her bruise has been made invisible by the silent system of her irises and removes any human connection.Ks words are infused with the morbid, the unverifiable, the impossible. They encapsulate the tension between reason and chance. The graphic, even rudimentary, nature of her drawings can make them perfect as rendering devices but difficult to form and pass. Ks work is mostly abstract, yet lacks human context, and the viewer is left to discern a fragmented visual world in which the photographic and the imaginary merge. Her drawings also lack graphic potency, which is not to say they are lacking in themselves, but a part of her art. To my eye, it is doubtful that Ks work will change anytime soon, for even in the mediums most profound, most enigmatic manifestations it remains as troubling as any other work.

Result #3

she looks (in a funny, indolent fashion) in the mirror of reality. In its power, the work is an evocation of the mood of a face that is transparent, and of an image that is itself deeply private.

Result #4

little she has of what she wants to believe in. She paints her bruise as a color that is simultaneously extreme and minimal. K replaces the actual bruises with painted lines that are out of scale, even though these do refer to her body and her scars. As a result, her body seems a freak, and her scars become a symbol of the impossibility of self-representation.

Result #5

For this project, K manipulates an image of her bruise to form a self-portrait. Through the indecipherable facial expression, blank eyes, and the way the bruises creep onto the face, she communicates how she feels every day of her life, with a certain inner voice. And, through the process of self-mirroring, she also wrestles with the possibility of the self as a mark on the wall, a bruise.A sequel to this exhibition was the video projection Trauma Pictures, which is based on a trauma of the mind. Each of the projected 30-minute sessions is a short interview with the artist about the most recent trauma, from memory to trauma treatment to trauma photography to trauma writing. For each segment, the artist has been asked to reflect on a specific incident from her past three years of writing, and the results are edited into a series of hand-colored self-portraits. As the interviews are edited together, the sequence of events is interrupted by a break and a bullet, two unconscious notes, and an erotic text that projects from one performer into another. The black-haired actresses face is tattooed with a garter-belt symbolizing trauma, while she speaks with the artist about how she gets the idea for her own homemade, dreamy work.In Trauma Pictures, K also includes a video loop of an interview with the art critic Ingrid Schaffner. The interview is a discourse on the political power of women, since it is unclear whether the artist, a supporter of women in art, agrees with Schaffners assertion that the art world is the most important arena for publicizing, documenting, and critiquing trauma. In one segment, the two actresses admit to being traumatized by the Spanish occupation of their country. The camera is shown interrupting them, asking them to elaborate, drawing diagrams on their bodies, and talking about their experiences as refugees in Berlin.