LOVE I – Searching Event

This year’s focal point deals with the one of the existential aspects or our
lives: LOVE.

In three exhibitions LOVE I – Searching, LOVE II – Being, and LOVE III –
Collapsing spans the range around a difficult, delicate and emotional topic.

LOVE I - Searching gives homage to the beating of the heart, to the state of
animated suspension at the beginning of falling in love and approaches this
complex condition of the heart from 9 artistic positions. Longing -
searching - approaching – accepting in connection with: Fragility,
uncertainty, magic, symbiosis, idealism, self identification, euphoria,
feeling fluctuations… - are content wise key words of the visual approaches
and arguments.

Armin Bardel shows, in his series Tatorte, places as contemporary witness of
first meetings, first sexual adventures and connects these with text
excerpts from a love struck diary achieving an autobiographical jogging of
the memory.

In the work Selbstliebe Aimée Blaskovic cites Erich Fromm and his thesis of
positive self-love results in the ability to be able to love others. She
examines the balancing act between: self to the partner - self to the
society – expectations of your own and demands of others - self-love and
narcissism.

Nina Dick´s work hello. are you there? is engaged with the recognition of
proximity via new ways of digital communication (Skype) and captures the
fragility in spatial distance of a beginning attraction as a slice of
reality from one evening.

The videos All my Life and Excess Baggage by Oriana Fox deal with
self-discovery and the search for the absolute love. Media, cliché,
fashionable influences, pieces of advice from parents and friends become
entwined in an ironical way with ones own autobiography and fantasy.

Ivan & Laura refers in his work Twins to the standardization of reproduction
as the principle of (bio)capital. Sexuality, gender roles and their
functions are likewise analyzed like the defining of oneself through others,
which fluctuate emotionally between a tender and an aggressive attraction
and allows no clear attributes.

Sissa Micheli makes reference in her installation I love you, I hate you to
the film „La Jetée“ by Chris Marker and translates that back and forth
oscillation between: love - hate, victim – suspect, bringing together the
search for luck and fulfillment versus the impossible, in a media reflexive
confrontation of photography and film/video.

Marzena Skubatz´s finely layered lyrical photographs transform the question
about what is love?, in landscapes and portraits to an individual mental
state as image. The picture pairs merge into an emotional symbiosis of
longing, expectations, and fearfulness.

Marion Üdema investigates in her series FreundeFinden the partner search, as
well as the erotic self-presentation of those searching internet forums
seeking contact and uncovers media ubiquitous body poses and picture
conventions. The attempt to create ones own ideal picture stands contrary to
visual paradigms of an era and its society.