the first night in space when I was drifting off to sleep

 

August 19 - 29, 2009

Opening August 18, 2009, 6 - 9 pm

 

Screening Event August 28, 2009, 7 pm

 

curated by Anne Fäser

 

 

Scotty Enterprises

Oranienstr. 46

10969 Berlin

Wed-Fr 3 - 7

Sat 12 - 4

 

Through drawings, films and installations, Dominique Hurth deals with the mechanisms of memory and history. Found and fictive artefacts such as encyclopaedias, dictionaries, photographs, objects, films, pictures from the Internet, as well as documents (collated in an on-going archive) are manifested via artistic revision, translation, quotation or re-enactment. Through a systematic method of replication, she questions the shift from narrative to cultural memory, and observes from diverse starting-points the gaps and dislocations of references that occur from original to copy. The reproduced objects become new documents, in which fictional and autobiographical narratives are inscribed in parallel to historical realities. The installations initiate confrontations with contemporary and historical remembrance of both collective and individual memories, and unload different readings of History.

 

In the exhibition, Dominique Hurth’s examination of the East-German encyclopaedia “Die Frau” (The Woman) from 1963 will stand in the foreground. This book served as pedagogical and political instrument for socialist indoctrination. The artist reconstructs selected pages of the book into drawings or objects, while omitting the original printed text or image subtitles. The original images are decontextualised from their primary meanings and can in this manner undergo renewed reflection. (Text: Anne Fäser)