Birgit Jürgenssen & Esther Ferrer

Gandy Gallery, Bratislava
22/03/24 till 17/05/24

Birgit Jürgenssen (1949-2003 Vienna) always considered fundamental to develop her artistic expressions on multiple levels, by overlapping them, using lights and shadows, projections on the body or collages. In some of her works, for example, covering the photographs with latex or fabric, the artist creates an erotic visual and, at the same time, tactile appeal. In others, by superimposing on the surfaces of the photographs a layer of translucent gauze, Jürgenssen produces a moment of voyeurism, of illusion. In this way, the desire to move "the curtain" aside to be able to see what lays behind it permeates the observer.

Birgit Jürgenssen herself states that she wants "by being seduced, to seduce others, by covering, to make things visible", playing with illusion and
reality. Through her camouflages, Birgit transforms her photographs into paintings and into sculptural objects, to which she lends something alive, organic. Precisely through multiple superimposition levels, she manages to refine the perception of her work’s narrative. mehr

 

ESTHER FERRER, San Sebastián (Spain) 1937, is best known for her performances, which have been her principal form of artistic expression since 1965, both as a soloist and as a member of the group ZAJ, until its dissolution in 1996. Her work has always been oriented to ephemeral artistic action rather than to permanent artistic production. She created, in collaboration with the painter José Antonio Sistiaga the first "Workshop for Free Expression," in the 60s, an activity that was to inspire other similar groups in Spain.

Beginning in the 70s, she has also been quite active in the plastic arts: reworked photographs, installations, canvases and constructions based on the prime number series, Pi and so forth. Her work is a very particular kind of minimalism, which she sometimes terms "rigorous absurdity".

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