Artnews.org: Pola Sieverding

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Pola Sieverding

©Pola Sieverding
Nocturne Arabesque
2009 Video transferred to DVD, Sound, 3’45’’

More images: www.artnews.org/polasieverding

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In her photographs, Pola Sieverding shifts between documentation and enactment, switches from distanced objectivity to pronounced subjectivity, and draws on both journalistic as well as genuinely artistic working methods. The photographs in the exhibition “Cadavre Exquis” were taken in places as various as Berlin, New York, and Ramallah. Yet they are distinguished, despite their differing sites of origin, by a clearly apparent thematic and aesthetic consistency.

Subculture. Pola Sieverding repeatedly places the focus on people who understand themselves as part of a subculture or alternative culture, whether hip hop, the New York gay scene, a variety of metal subcultures, or the Berlin club scene. In most of her photographs, individual people. The photographs are thus not about the depiction of a culture as a collective movement, but rather the depiction of individual persons, shown in a certain pose at the moment of exposure. The artist terms these photos of individual actors (here the word “actor” should be understood quite literally), many taken in close proximity, as “assertions of portraits,” since they often conceal more than they reveal. In this way, they undermine—or seem at first glance to undermine—the classical claim of the portrait to reveal the true personality of the person portrayed.

Active Observation. Pola Sieverding conceives of her position as that of the “active observer.” It is only in this way, involved on the one hand, distanced by the camera from the action on the other, that the artist can achieve images of such concentration, the intimacy of which sometimes lets us forget that the person shown is likely not in a sheltered studio environment, but rather surrounded by other people in a (half-)public space.

Queerness. We see the spike-armored metal singer, the dancer in full-body netting, a man with luminous make-up, a veiled woman: All of them embody different social concepts and positions, and fill out these concepts not least with the help of props and masquerades. It is striking that Sieverding often draws on protagonists whose biological sex can be difficult to determine. These protagonists serve as particularly impressive examples of “queerness,” in the sense of the equivocal, as a synonym for liberation from rigid ascriptions and norms. These fragile and hybrid portraits make plain how closely our social paradigms are tied to determinations of gender and sexuality. This manifests a perspective of Sieverding’s that is very much a “feminist” one.

Temporary Conceptions of the Subject. Pola Sieverding understands her images as offering “temporary conceptions of the subject,” as a critical commentary on prevailing principles of differentiation. This also gives expression to her interest in the degree of self-determination in every person. It thus makes perfect sense that the artist creates connections between photographs drawn from different cultures. Portraits juxtaposed alongside one another make Western city nightlife and everyday occurrences in Eastern crisis regions serve as foils for one another. The social concept of convention and “normality” thereby loses all relevance and is fundamentally called into question.

Barbara J. Scheuermann

Pola Sieverding

1981 born in no entry, Germany

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Education

2003 Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, USA
2005 Surikov Institute Moscow, Russia
2007 MFA at University of the Arts Berlin, class of Prof. Stan Douglas

Grants

2010
_Artist in Residence Grant of Anna Lindh Foundation and International Academy of Art Palestine in Ramallah, Palestine

2008/09
_NaFöG Stipendiatin des Berliner Senats und der UdK Berlin

2008
_Artist in Residence of ArtSchool Palestine in Ramallah
_DAAD in New York

2005
_NICA Moskau

2002
_NICA Pittsburgh, USA

Solo Exhibitions

2010
_RHIZOMA, Tät, Berlin

2009
_Cadavre Exquis, Galerie Lena Brüning, Berlin
_FIGURES OF AFFECT, Friederike Hamann und Pola Sieverding, Campagne Première, Berlin

Group Exhibitions

2010
_BERLIN KREUZBERG BIENNALE, Berlin
_The Green Valley Desaster, by Galerie im Regierungsviertel/Forgotten Bar Project, X INITIATIVE, Tate Modern, London
_Das Geschehen 3, Infernoesque, Berlin
_SIX DAYS OF NEW MEDIA, Linienstrasse 127, Berlin
_Künstler der Galerie III, Galerie Lena Brüning, Berlin
_DEFENDING OUR VALUES (LIGHTBOX/THE MODULE), presented by Galerie im Regierungsviertel, KUNSTRAUM INNSBRUCK, Austria

2009
_I'm afraid.It is hungry.It is immortal., Art in General, New York
_The Morning After The Night Before, Forgotten Bar, Berlin
_A Nightmare Full Of Things Unspeakable, curated by Nicola Vassell and Karline Moeller, Concept V, New York
_DEFENDING OUR VALUES (LIGHTBOX/THE MODULE), presented by Galerie im Regierungsviertel, CCA Andratx, Spain
_Künstler der Galerie II, Galerie Lena Brüning, Berlin
_Meetings with Arab Culture, Cytryna Cinema, Lodz, Poland
_Open Space "Elevator to the gallows" by Galerie im Regierungsviertel/Forgotten Bar Project, X INITIATIVE, New York
_Solar Beam, Parkdeck, Düsseldorf
_TrojaIII, Galerie im Regierungsviertel/Forgotten Bar, Art Copenhagen

2008
_Radius, public space, Kiel
_High Beam, Immermann 9, Düsseldorf

2007
_Hardcore Glamour, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin
_Heavy Rotation, Uferpalast, Berlin

2006
_Don't Worry About Tomorrow, Basso, Berlin
_Ausser Haus, Uferhallen, Berlin

2002
_wundermaschine, Museum for Photography, Braunschweig

Projects

2010
_SIX DAYS OF NEW MEDIA, Linienstrasse 127, Berlin

2009
_Solar Beam, Parkdeck, Düsseldorf

Bibliography

WOUND Quaterly, "Now Objectivity" Ken Pratt on Pola Sieverding
Fall 2009, London UK

Links

www.polasieverding.com
http://www.lenabruening.de/index.php?menu=artists&art_id=27

Pola Sieverding

Galerie
Lena Brüning
Almstadtstr. 50
10119 Berlin
Germany

+49(0)30.30366677
+49(0)30.30366676
info@lenabruening.de
www.lenabruening.de

Studio Pola Sieverding
Berlin

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contact@polasieverding.com
www.polasieverding.com