Falke Pisano: The Body in Crisis

After several years devoted to her cycle of works ‘Figures of Speech’ (2005-2010), Falke Pisano’s second solo exhibition at Ellen de Bruijne Projects introduces a new series of propositions and inquiries that deal with “the Body in Crisis as an on-going event”. In her installation ‘The Body in Crisis (Distance, Repetition, and Representation)’ Pisano focuses on historical representations of the human body in moments of crisis, mainly collected caricatures and graphics that she encountered in research and travels over the last year. Following the idea that “the state of emergency we live in is the rule” (W. Benjamin) Pisano centres her analysis on two things: First, the historical and continuous reiteration of the human body finding itself in moments of crisis, and thus exposing the changing political, social and economic structures that have an impact on the bare condition of human (self-)cognition. Second, Pisano’s propositions formulate an inquiry into the formal possibilities to represent the body in crisis, in the realm of art. Drawing a perspective on these critical movements of de- and reterritorialisation of the body and its representation along history, she maps the challenge of affirming that ‘distance’ and ‘repetition’ are as such constitutional for the logic of representation and semiosis in modern and post-modern culture. In this sense Pisano comprehensibly follows up her work in the ‘Figures of Speech’ cycle, thus adding to it layers of human figuration.

Falke Pisano (NL, 1978) lives and works in Berlin. Her diagrammatic works expose a loop, in which shifting abstract sculptural forms are conceived directly in relation to written and spoken language, implying an ongoing and morphing production of meaning. Solo exhibitions include Transmission Gallery, Glasgow; Hollybush Gardens, London; Balice Hertling, Paris and Grazer Kunstverein (with Benoit Maire), Graz. She was represented in Making Worlds, 53rd Venice Biennale (2009), Modernologies, Macba, Barcelona (2009), Yokohama Triennale, Japan (2008), Word Event, Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2008) and Manifesta 7, Trentino (2008).

Pisano comprised her work, focusing on the act of speech in relation to different forms of agency in artistic production, in the publication ‘’Figures of Speech’’ (designed and co-edited by Will Holder, published by JRP-Ringier, Christoph Keller Editions, 2010).

Falke Pisano
The Body in Crisis
(Distance, Repetition, and Representation)