Cultural Confusion

We are very pleased to announce our show 'Cultural Confusion'!

'Cultural Confusion' assembles three remarkable artists who come from three completely different cultural areas: Yesim Akdeniz Graf from Turkey/Germany and Hadassah Emmerich from Holland/Indonesia and Pavel Pepperstein from Russia. To what extent does the controversially discussed “Clash of Cultures” ask for new image strategies enabling the artist to integrate conventional images and to distance himself/herself at the same time?

Yesim Akdeniz Graf, born in Izmir (TR) in 1978, lives and works in Düsseldorf where she graduated from Art Academy in 2002. In 2006 she was awarded the Peter Mertes scholarship by the Bonner Kunstverein (the attendant exhibition can be seen until April 22 at the Bonner Kunstverein). Praised as one of the great painter discoveries (2003), numerous solo and group exhibitions in Düsseldorf, Amsterdam, Istanbul, London and Zurich followed. In the current exhibition Akdeniz Graf shows large-sized works on paper which schematise and codify concrete narratives and therefore offer an ambiguity of openness and mysteriousness. Akdeniz Graf’s imagery derives from the world of media as well as from specific icons such as modernist architecture. In almost surreal spaces the connections between traditional aspects and symbols of modernism become visible. “My paintings are metaphors for the stories I'm interested in. I set up a certain logic for each painting and then I break it down within that very same painting. I am interested in the moment when the system fails, when crisis disrupts continuity."

Hadassah Emmerich, born in Heerlen (NL) in 1974. She is artist in residence in Antwerp at the present. In 2005 she graduated from the Goldsmiths College in London with a MA in Fine Art. She was selected by the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture for a 1-year residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin (D). Being of Dutch, Indonesian and Chinese decent (with a Hebrew name), her art is the epitome of dislocated desire. By weaving together fragments of contemporary myths she creates grand murals, sculptures and smaller works on paper and canvas. Each installation stands as a monumental daydream, a luscious fairytale, a titillating confessional. Echoing a baroque edacity, Emmerich presents an unappeased appetite where too much is never enough. In 'Cultural Confusion' Emmerich presents a gigantic bloomy sculpture, a smaller work on paper, 'fish and flowers', which was inspired by a cathedral in Antwerp and three black/white linocuts that refer to the controversially discussed book 'The myth of primitivism', which offers critical essays on the notion of 'primitivism'. By making a representation of it in linocut (a technique often associated with 'primitivism') Emmerich is again 'exoticising' the book.

Pavel Pepperstein, born in Moscow in 1966, lives and works as an author and artist in Moscow. He is one of the most significant leading figures of the Russian conceptualism of the 80s. Pepperstein is also one of the co-founders of the famous artist group 'Inspection Medical Hermeneutics' which created a subversive subculture and enabled the members to critically dissociate from the prevailing system. From the beginning drawing was the most significant medium for Pepperstein. The featured works show almost invisible sceneries on Japanese paper. The appearance of landscapes, human beings and animals evolve from clouds of watercolours similar to traditional Chinese ink painting. Mysterious stories are defined by fragile outlines: beneath cloud-cloaked mountains one can spot mafia-like killer commandos.

The Kupferstichkabinett of the Kunstmuseum Basel shows works by Pepperstein from their collection until April 8.

Cultural Confusion
Yesim Akdeniz Graf / Hadassah Emmerich / Pavel Pepperstein