FREYA HATTENBERGER WORKS TEXT VITA CONTACT LINKS |
< BACK TO TEXT About Freya Hattenberger
by Alex de Vries
The artist Freya
Hattenberger, who studied at the Kunsthochschule für Medien in
Cologne (Academy for Media Art Cologne), shows
work that displays no unfamiliarity with technology whatsoever. Nor is that the case as regards to its content. Early on in her studies she already produced work that shows this familiarity with technology. Freya Hattenberger takes the private as the basis for a public presentation. The photo series „DIE ZIMMER MEINER EX-FREUNDE“ („THE ROOMS OF MY EX-BOYFRIENDS“) represent the position towards her own past in a present form from which she herself had disappared. They are specific interiors in which she had a place at one time, but which have developed without her. The spaces have changed, but not in the way she has changed as a person. In „ICH BIN´S“ („IT´S ME“) we see her drink a litre of cola, burping loudly after each swig. The rudeness of her behaviour shows where she is from and how she relates to her origins. She would never ever burp in public. In another work she presents various articles of clothing as covers for the body, adapting her voice and character with each piece of clothing. She lived in Paris for a year, and in the streets she was often acosted by men. In reaction to that she made the work „NOT A VENUS“, showing herself with her panties around her ankles and then peeing over her feet. In nearly all her work she brings up the interchange between her personal life and the social relations she is subject to in a very insistent manner, which is yet so matter-of –course that you get discouraged by it. It makes her work grate and chafe. Painful, but astonishing. At the bottom of a "METAPHORICAL STAIRCASE" lies a woman who took an unfortunate fall. It is Freya Hattenberger. Just slipped... |
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