Bettina Allamoda

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Bettina Allamoda

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Hatra, 2010
leatherette, steel, 354 x 370 x 118 cm
No Go- the Exorcist Revisited
September Berlin
Photo: © Jens Ziehe

More images: www.artnews.org/bettinaallamoda

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Bettina Allamoda

In 2004, while watching William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973), a US Army captain realized that the opening sequence – in which a small stone head is excavated and an evil demon named Pazuzu is set free – was filmed at the ancient ruins of Hatra, Iraq, where he was on duty. He had the idea of turning the site into an Exorcist Theme Park. Though the project never got off the ground, Bettina Allamoda treated this bit of news like an excavated demon head itself: a small item with large resonances in the connections between war and entertainment, fantasies of control and being controlled. Rather than didactically illustrating these connections, Allamoda formalized them into a sensory, spatial and sculptural experience. Her piece The Exorcist (2009) – a large still from the eponymous film in which the demon-possessed girl levitates above her bed, the heavy Victorian posts padded like Louise Bourgeois fetish pieces – hung across from some of her ‘Bed Bondage Sculptures’ (2009–ongoing), which consist of the kind of metal rods used for bicycle stands clasped with stretchy synthetic fabric. In Bed Bondage sculpture #2 (2009/10), a freestanding rod is kept from falling over by a long piece of salmon-coloured Lycra wrapped around the bar, its two ends fixed to wall and ceiling – a precarious balance as reminiscent of post-Minimalism as of a makeshift repair at a 1990s outdoor rave.  Allamoda’s combination of steel and synthetic fabric recalls both crowd control and staging devices, some examples of which can be seen in her pop-up collages (involving images protruding from the white support). In NYC / Times Square (2010), two boys behold a soldier in an advertisement on a screen above the US Army recruitment centre in Times Square, next to pedestrian barriers around what looks like a PA system, half-covered with blue tarpaulin. In Deathblow/Pazuzu Shrine (2008), the comic-book character Deathblow – an ex-Navy Seal turned steely, muscular war machine – is combined with a comic-version Pazuzu sculpture, and the lines: ‘I was raised a patriot. Trained as a soldier. And became a killer.’  Allamoda’s sculptures and collages make tangible the torsions and inversions (and not just repetitions or appropriations) that the military-entertainment complex produces. She arrived at Bed Bondage Sculpture #3 (2010) by wringing a piece of black synthetic leather around a bar stool and fixing it to the wall so that it sticks out from it. The result looks like a leaping Batman, the physical effect on the material reminiscent of Giovanni Anselmo’s seminal Torsion (1968), which similarly involves leather wrung around a piece of wood, or Steven Parrino’s canvases pulled and contorted around the stretcher. But while Anselmo and Parrino covered their tracks and reduced everything to the physical interaction and its result, Allamoda opens the can of worms. References are crawling everywhere, but the sculptures hold up.

©Jörg Heiser, Frieze 133, September 2010

Far from sealing off her art in a hermetic, private theme-park against reports from the outside, Bettina Allamoda pursues charging her work with inner- and trans-societal issues. Fashion, being one focus of her work, takes on forms of sculpture, performance, posters, window displays, or museum showcases: Fashion, not as a commodity of promised glamour, but as a mirror of societal roles and a most early indicator of its changes.
In “ready-to-wear/colonial”, a body of work started 2001, Allamoda examines how architectures – the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris designed by Jean Nouvel and the Musée des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie, also in Paris – were discovered and occupied by the fashion industry as locations for fashion presentations. A staged contrast, appearing similar, yet more abstract, in the installation “Streetwear” (2008), where Allamoda fastens shiny blue organza fabric to a metal pole supported by a galvanized barrier.
The barrier as a demarcation of spectacle, perhaps a political demonstration or pop concert, appears a highly improbable host for fabric draped to allude to the silhouette of a veiled woman. (In)Sights like these, immediately prompting the viewer to envision a scene and lead to speculations regarding political motives, are consistantly challenged in Allamoda’s work.
Her current project is also based on retracing forms and news reports in an archaeologically precise manner: doing research on the 2004 report of a US Army captain, who incidentally discovered the ruins in the Iraqi city of Hatra, were originally used by William Friedkin as a backdrop for the opening sequence of his famous 1973 film “The Exorcist”. Now, financially backed by the Pentagon, an “Exorcist Theme Park” is to be developed in the area.
As the case with the Institut du Monde Arabe fashion show, here too, ‘the Orient’ is instrumentalized as a backdrop promising cultural thrill – as tourist attraction, as exotistic wallpaper. Allamoda not only reflects the mediatisation of cultural clichés, but simultaneously how they also always convey notions of economic and above all cultural superiority. Yet Allamoda does not address these dynamic instances with a didactic and educational gesture, quite the contrary: Her art consists in tracing them by deliberately creating complex frictions between form, material and connotations.

©Jan Kedves, 2009

Bettina Allamoda

1964 born in Chicago, United States

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Education

1983-1990 Hochschule der Künste - Berlin & Central/St. Martins's School of Art & Design, London

Grants

2012 Berlin Artist in Residence, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena
2008 Künstlerstätte Schloss Bleckede Artist Residency/ HfK Lüneburg
2007 Artist Scholarship Berlin Cultural Senat
2006 Artist in Residence, Neue Galerie Landesmuseum Johanneum Graz
2002 Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn Scholarship
2001 Cité des Arts, Paris, Berlin Studio
1998 European studio programme, ACC-Galerie Weimar
1996 Artist's grant from Stiftung Kulturfonds Berlin
1995 Karl-Hofer-Studio programme
1994 Progetto Civitella D'Agliano,Italy/ stipend, Berlin Cultural Senat
1993 Scholarship of AG Cultural Women's Fund, Berlin Cultural Senat
1992 Studio programme Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
1991 Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprogramm e.V. Berlin
1992 Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin Studioprogram

Solo Exhibitions

2010 Nogo- the Exorcist revisited, September Berlin
2009 Public Fabric (with Rainer Kamlah), BM Suma Contemporary Art
Center Istanbul
Wall wear/ Nation Building, Hubert Bächler Gallery Zurich
2008 To Die For (mit Nikolaus Utermöhlen), September Berlin
2007 Shake your Money Maker (with Olaf Nicolai, Helmut & Johanna Kandl,
Jens Haaning. B.Allamoda artist, concept & curator) Galerie Barbara
Thumm Berlin
2006 Monument/Konfektion, Zwinger Galerie Berlin
2005 All Dressed Up, Laura Mars Grp. Berlin
2004 Nation Building/Institut du Monde Arabe, Zwinger Galerie Berlin
2003 Institut du Monde Arabe/Showroom, Art & Fashion Kiosk, Weimar (c)
2002 Ready-to-Wear/Colonial II, Zwinger Galerie Berlin
2001 Ready-to-Wear/Colonial, Galerie Barbara Thumm Berlin
Home-movie Interior Decoration Series,Laura Mars Berlin
2000 Les Artistes Décorateurs, Galerie Jenoptik AG, Jena (c)
1999 Airbox unlimited, temporary public sculpture, Cultural Capital Weimar
1997 Trigon, Zwinger Galerie Berlin
1996 Jurassic, Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin (c)
Les Artistes Décorateurs, Kunstraum München e.V. (c)
Yesteryear/Humanleague (Performance), Kunstraum München,
Feministische Fachtagung Duderstadt
1995 Cinderella Cases, allgirls gallery, Berlin
Yesteryear/Humanleague (Performance), when tekkno turns to sound of
poetry program, Kunstwerke e.V. Berlin, Shedhalle Zurich
1994 Alien Cases, Galerie von Witzleben, Karlsruhe
Yesteryear/Humanleague (Performance), Dichtermuseum Karlsruhe
1993 Memorabilia, Science & Fiction 93, Zeiss Großlanetarium Berlin(c)
Return to Forever, Friseur der Botschaft e.V., Berlin
1992 5 years, Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin (c)
Modern Classics, Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin (c)
1990 - an Archeology of the Present, Information- & Culturcentre
Russian Federation/GUS, Berlin-Mitte
1990 Industrial Archeology Room, Steelopolis, Röchling Steelworks,
Völklingen
Bettina Allamoda & Stephan Deckert, Stellen Aus, exhibit Galerie,
Berlin
1989 Aliensteel, ONS Galerie, Berlin
1988 Collection Rustikal, Galerie Contraforma, Belin
Grabung, Galerie am Taubengarten, Grünstadt

Performances/ Lectures/Symposia (selected):

2010 Ruin(ed) Documents, Symposium Medium & Materiality, ZHdK Zürich,
Art Field Trip, Forum Expanded, Forum Show, Berlin Film Festival
2009 All Dressed Up, Mode & Styles, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Art Field Trip, Forum Expanded, Forum Show, Berlin Film Festival
2007 Nogo- the Exorcist revisited, Top of Experience Conference HSLU
Luzern
Public Views of the Private: Private Views of the Public (with Martha
Rosler, Feride Çiçekoglu, Jon Rubin)Visual Sociology Congress, NYU
University, NYC
2005 Performance-Talk with Guests (Claudia Basrawi, Ted Gaier) RAF
exhibition, Sophiensaele Berlin & Gothenburg
model-map, Urban Art Stories, Alexanderplatz Berlin (c)
The Politics of Beauty, Lecture & Panel, Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin(with
Shaheen Merali, Bernd Skupin et al)
2004 GDR as Material for Art, Bauhaus University Weimar
Re-reading a Place: model map: Kartographie einer Architektur am
Beispiel Haus des Lehrers Berlin, Architektur und Film, Festival
Brotfabrik Berlin
2003 Nation-Building, Bauhaus University Weimar, Kunsthaus Dresden,
Academy of Fine Arts Munich
Institut du Monde Arabe/Showroom, ACC Galerie
2002 Home-Movie Interior Decoration, Laura Mars Grp., Berlin
2001 Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg
Unlimited Travel 2001, Arsenals Museum for Modern Art, Riga
2000 Unlimited Travel 2000, Schloß Plüschow
1999 psychedelic land-art, ambi:in/out, Haus des Lehrers Berlin
1998 schau-vogel-schau, Symposium on Art & Intercontextuality Kunstverein
postvacuum, Leipzig (with Olaf Nicolai, Dietmar Kamper, Stephan
Schmidt-Wulfen et al) (c)
Leisure - Bauhaus, ACC-Galerie Weimar
1997 Genocyber, transmediale, Berlin
les artistes décorateurs, Art Academy Berlin
1995 Human League/Yesteryear, When tekkno turns to sound of poetry,
Shedhalle, Zurich
1994 Oh boy it's a Girl,Panel, Kunstverein München/Museumsquartier
Vienna
1992 20th Anniversary of Art & Culture, audio-slide- performance lecture, KW
Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin

(c) = catalog/book/publication

Group Exhibitions

2012 Performance Collage - Bauhaus Performance, Screening, Art in the
Parking Space, LA><ART, Los Angeles, California
Dress/id, the Language of the Self, Centre d'Art Passerelle, Brest
Doublebound Economies, Halle 14 Leipzig
Tender Buttons, September Projectspace Berlin
2011 Open Space, Art Cologne
2001 - 2011, 10 years Laura Mars Grp., Berlin
2010 A gathering of the tribes - Ehemelige Studierende der Klasse
Evison, Universität der Kunste Berlin
Thema Frau, September Gallery Berlin
Mobile Archives, Israeli Centre for Digital Art, Stacion - Center for
Contemporary Art Prishtina
2009 40 year anniversary, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin
The Omega Workshops, Metal Postcard, September Berlin
2008 Top of Experience- or the Art of Spectacle, Kunsthalle Luzern
What difference?, Artforum Berlin (H-J. Hafner Kurator)
Mobile Archives, Israeli Centre for Digital Art, Newbery Gallery,
Glasgow School of Art
Something Less, Something More, One One One London, The David
Roberts Art Foundation London
2007 Aus-Räumen, Artmuseum Dieselkraftwerk, Brandenburg
Kulturstiftung Cottbus
Nur eine Frage (nach) der Geste, Goetheinstitut Rom,
2006 Leipzig Opera (with Erwin Wurm, Lisl Ponger, Candice Breice, Alba
D'Urbano & Tina Bara, curators (c)
"What a great Space you have!" Luxe Gallery, New York, curator:
Marc Gloede
Postcolonial and After,University of Southern Florida, Convivant
Gallery Tampa
2005 Überreichweiten – perceiving GDR in Contemporary Art,
Motorenhalle Dresden
Regarding Terrorism:: Die RAF Exhibition, Neue Galerie im
Joanneum Graz & KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin(c)
Von Mäusen und Menschen & Checkpoint Charlie, 4. berlin biennale,
KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin
Entwürfe, Wettbewerb Deutsche Botschaft Tokio, BBR Berlin
2004 Licht!- 10 Jahre Kunst, Galerie der Jenoptik AG, Jena (c)
Überreichweiten – perceiving GDR in Contemporary Art, ACC Galerie
Weimar
Subduktive Massnahmen,Barbarastollen Freiburg/ Kunst-und
Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Bonn
The Higher Truth, Büro Friedrich Berlin
cross-country, mit Eva Catringius & Jutta Geier, Haus am Kleistpark
Berlin
2003 Come-In - Interior as Medium Contemporary Art (with Gregor
Schneider, Tobias Rehberger, John Bocket al), travelling exhibition
until 2010, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa) (c)
Windstösse/Nebengeräusche curator: Christiane Mennicke, Kunsthaus
Dresden (c)
2002 t.i.a.- this is america, Art-& Mediacentre, Berlin - Adlershof
Nuova Città D´Arte, Opera Paese Kunstverein, Rom
2001 Contemporary Utopia (with Stan Douglas, Katharina Sieverding, Art in
Ruins et al), Arsenals Contemporary Art Museum Riga (c)
Pandaemonium, Video-Programm, lux London (K)
2000 Sieben Hügel, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (K)
BMA 2000 (with Gunter Reski, Ralf Ritter, Markus Wirthmann et al),
Kunstverein Aschaffenburg
1999 Community-Society, ACC-Galerie Weimar(with Esra Ersen, Apolonija
Sustersic) (c)
Conversation Pieces (with Eran Schaerf, Silvie Fleury et al), Zwinger
Galerie Berlin
1998 Listen to my House, allgirls Audio-Project, Forum Stadtpark Graz
U2 Alexanderplatz Wettbewerbsentwürfe, NGBK Berlin (c)
art club berlin, curatpMies-van-de Rohe Pavillon Barcelona
1997 art club berlin, Artforum Berlin
In Medias Res (with Arnold Dreyblatt, Lothar Baumgarten, Qin Yufen et
al) Dolmabahçe Culture Centre, Istanbul (c)
Karl Hofer Gesellschaft Stipendiaten95-97, Kunstraum Kreuzberg
Berlin(c)
1996 The Thing Between, Technische Sammlungen Dresden (with Atelier v.
Lieshout, Zbigniew Libera et al) (c)
Family Nation Tribe Community SHIFT, NGBK, House of World Cultures
Berlin (with Martha Rosler, Christian-Phillip Müller, Alfredo Jaar et al) (c)
Works, Galerie im Parkhaus Treptow, Berlin (c)
Escape Attempts(Compartments), Fabrikken Christiania, Copenhagen (c)
1995 Filmcuts, Galerie Neugerriemenschneider, Berlin
Show & Tell, WAPO-Projekt, ars electronica, Linz (K)
Rubber, Hygiene Museum Dresden (K)
allgirls on tour, I A S, London/ Spacegallery, Chicago
cu, cu, cube, Galerie Zwinger, Berlin
When tekkno turns to sound of poetry, Kunstwerke Berlin
1994 When tekkno turns to sound of poetry, Shedhalle, Zürich (with Natascha
Sadr-Haghihian, Ute Meta Bauer, Judith Hopf, Juliane Rebentisch et al)
Communita, Progetto Civitella D'Agliano, Italy (with Wochenklausur, Ingo
Günther et al)
Document Stations, Kunstverein Kassel (with Marion von Osten et al),
allgirls Berlin
1993 A Space Without Art, TV Tower, Berlin-Mitte (c)
allgirls on tour, Galerie Eigen & Art, Leipzig
1992 Museum of History, curator: Harald Fricke, Botschaft e.V. Berlin (c)
Makroville, Ehrenhof, Düsseldorf
Economy Artprize,(with Alice Creischer, Andreas Siekmann) et all,
Casino Bad Oeyenhausen
1991 heute, Frauennetzwerk Goldrausch e.V., Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
1998 Play-off, Hochschule der Künste Berlin

Projects

2007 Shake your Money Maker (with Olaf Nicolai, Helmut & Johanna
Kandl, Jens Haaning. B.Allamoda artist, concept & curator) Galerie
Barbara Thumm Berlin
2003 model map: cartography of an architecture: examining Haus des
Lehrers Berlin, multiple exhibition & publication project, Masters
Programme, Institute for Art in Context, Fine Art Department, UdK
Berlin & other venues
1999 Ambi:in/out- project with Natascha Sadr-Haghigian, Tina Friedrich
on sound-& urban space, Haus des Lehrers Berlin (guests: Harun
Farocki, Bernhard Leitner, Terre Thaemlitz et al)
1999 Airbox unlimited, temporary sculpture in public space, Cultural
Capital Weimar
1996 concept, participation, development, realisation, artist &
architecture of the exhibition Family, Nation, Tribe, Community Shift,
New Society for Fine Arts(NGBK) House of World Cultures (HKW)

Bibliography

Publications

Catwalk to History, a Sourcebook by Bettina Allamoda, Revolver Publishing 2010, mit einem Gespräch mit Juliane Rebentisch & Texten von Jan Kedves, Jörg Heiser, Claudia Basrawi et al
model map - Kartographie einer Architektur am Beispiel Haus des Lehrers Berlin: zwischen Kunst, Verkleidung, Projektion & Werbeträger, Revolver Verlag, Frankfurt 2003 (Hrsg.) Textbeiträge (mit Texten von Hanne Loreck, Anett Gröschner, Harun Farocki, Claus Löser et al)
Bettina Allamoda: Die Welt als Maßstab, Galerie der Jenoptik AG, 2000 (mit einem Text von Ulf Erdmann Ziegler, Anna-Maria Ehrmann-Schindlbeck)
Les Artistes Décorateurs, Kunstraum München, 1999 (Hrsg.) & Redaktion, Gesamtkonzeption/Realisation,Textbeiträge: Vorwort: Bilderbucharchitekturen, Interview mit Richard Hamilton: This is Tomorrow, Kunst und Wissenschaft:Interview mit Detlef Uttikal(mit Texten von Christoph Tannert, Justin Hoffmann)
Return to Forever - Vorwärts in die Vergangenheit (eine Kulturgeschichte zur Installation als Kommunikationsform), Family, Nation, Tribe, Community - SHIFT, Zeitgenössische Konzepte im Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst Berlin, 1996
Memorabilia, Science & Fiction 93, Berlin 1993 (Hrsg.) Begleitpublikation zur ortsspezifischen Ausstellung im Zeiss Großplanetarium Berlin, Redaktion, Gesamtkonzeption/Realisation. Textbeiträge: Toy, Cult & Aerospace & 1990 - eine Archäologie der Gegenwart (mit Texten von: Brigitte Werneburg, Ulrich Giersch & Frank-Michael Arndt)
5 Years - zur Ausstellung erscheint ein Katalog, Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, 1992 (Hrsg.)mit Texten von: Frank Barth, Philip Weiss, Harald Fricke, Ueli Etter, Detlef Kuhlbrodt, Einleitung: Heike Dander

Links

www.september-berlin.de

www.lauramars.de

www.zwinger-galerie.de

www.bthumm.de/www/artists/allamoda/exhibitions.php

Bettina Allamoda

Mittenwalderstr. 50
10961 Berlin
Germany

ballamoda@hotmail.com