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Carissa Rodriguez: Imitation of Life
May 4–August 18, 2024
With Imitation of Life, Kunstverein München presents the first institutional solo exhibition in Europe by Carissa Rodriguez. The exhibition centers on a new video work created during the first year in the life of the artist’s first child and opens soon after the baby turns one. The production timeline for the artist coincides with the period known as primary maternal preoccupation—a mindset of psychic interdependence between mother and child.
The durational video enacts reverie—the experience of being lost in thought. Filmed exclusively during the hour between 6am to 7am, or the break of dawn, it is not the sunrise that is recorded, but its reflection in the phallic mirror: a nearby skyscraper seen from the window of the baby’s room in the artist’s apartment. By framing a natural occurrence (sunrise), a landscape (Manhattan skyline), a chosen hour (before the workday begins), and an intrapsychic state (matrescence), the video occupies a liminal space between interior and exterior, conscious and unconscious and embodies the inherent contradiction between daydreaming and productive labor. In this framework, free time is rendered paradoxical through the artist’s effort to translate life into art. Modes of reflexivity and “mirroring” (mental, physical, metaphorical) run throughout Rodriguez’s exhibition, while the reveries engage the often-conflicting temporal demands of exhibition-making and caregiving. Drone cinematography, ubiquitous in modern warfare, is tested as a medium to convey tenderness and intimacy.
Imitation of Life also features two off-site projects in the vicinity of Kunstverein München. Following previous solo projects, namely The Maid (2018) and La Collectionneuse (2013), Rodriguez once again works in sets of three. In her Munich exhibition, the artist connects three distinct institutions of self-cultivation: the museum, the school, and the cinema.
Constance DeJong: Selected printed matter and videos
May 4–26, 2024
The work of U.S.-American artist, prose writer, and performer Constance DeJong is the focus of an exhibition in the Kunstverein’s Archive Space. A selection of printed matter from DeJong’s personal archive is on display alongside video recordings of her multimedia spoken-word performances, spanning fifty years of her influential practice at the intersections of language, text, and image. The presentation is accompanied by a newly conceived performance of night-themed works by DeJong, entitled It’s Always Night, which takes place on May 5, 2024. The piece is presented in collaboration with Theater Neumarkt, Zurich, Kunsthalle Winterthur, IMAI—Inter Media Art Institute, Düsseldorf, and Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf.
Schaufenster
The onsite and online series Schaufenster currently presents Sondra Perry’s video phantom.menace. (2023), in which the artist utilizes the latest AI technology to reflect on artistic production as well as the formation of memory and identity. The series continues in May with Hauskatze (2020) by Tiphanie Kim Mall, for which the artist has attached a camera to her cat’s collar in order to let it do the filming. The work panders two voyeuristic desires at once: we are granted access to the perspective of the four-legged companion, while at the same time gaining an intimate view of the artist’s home, where we can observe her both at work and at rest. Patty Chang’s Melons (At a Loss) follows in July. The 1998 video shows the artist ritualistically spooning a melon from her bra, while balancing a plate on her head. The work is informed by the passing of the artist’s aunt from breast cancer; the narrated text explores the construction of rituals and notions of the authentic.
Writers Residency
The Writers Residency takes up the tradition of the town chronicler and offers a temporary space for writing. The program is aimed at authors and critics, as well as artists whose practice is based on writing. The fellow from April to June 2024 is Laura McLean-Ferris, a writer, curator, and critic who is currently working on a novel exploring subjective porosity and performance, and a new text on twilight hours and dissolution. Previous residents include Erika Landström, Joshua Leon, Sarah Messerschmidt, and Taylor Le Melle, among others. The call for applications for the next residency period from October to December 2024 opens at the end of April.
Director (Interim): Gloria Hasnay
Director (Parental Leave): Maurin Dietrich
Assistant Curator: Lucie Pia
Curatorial Project Assistant: Lea Vajda
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