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OBSERVER

02.04. – 04.06.2020

Kota Ezawa

Federico Solmi

OBSERVER

Kota Ezawa & Federico Solmi

Opening: 02.04.2020

Only online exhibition

 

The exhibition „Observer“ highlights Kota Ezawa and Federico Solmi, two artists, who are dedicated to looking closely at our complex societal structures and uncover false virtues or state historical and current grievances, without sugarcoating the truth.

Whereas Kota Ezawa’s work is characterized by the reduction of detail and simplification of the imagery, Federico Solmi seems to do the exact opposite, by creating meticulously detailed satirical and colour boasting scenes.

Federico Solmi’s (*1973, Italy) works are often an installative compositions combining various media such as video, paintings, drawings and mechanical sculptures. His satires depicting society’s evils and vices are displayed in a surrealistic imagery, derived from pop culture, the video game industry and the Internet.

„We’re going to find ourselves in a fictionalized political situation in which telling people the truth is not important. […] Propaganda will be so widespread that people will feel so disillusioned and so powerless that they will find it very difficult even to form an opinion.“ (Federico Solmi)

Solmi’s work „The Great Farce“ was projected over more than one hundred meters on the entire facade of the Frankfurt Opera House for the B3 Biennial of the Moving Image in 2017.

Japanese-German artist Kota Ezawa (*1969, Germany) uses iconic archival images from news or film in his work, addressing the danger of the fact that we only remember the past through mediated images from television, news or cinema.

The series of light boxes presented here, are part of a group of works centered around the controversially discussed occurrences at NFL football games, where the players refused to sing the „National Anthem“, but instead took a knee, protesting police violence against unarmed men of color.

His video work, which is part of this project, was very successfully presented at the Whitney Biennial 2019 in New York.

Both artists are based in the US.