Hito Steyerl

The moment an image appears on a screen, a web of political relationships is not only reflected, but actively produced. This places the forces responsible for images at the very center of an ethics of production and reception. Hito Steyerl is an artist whose essays and artworks insist that this ethics is much more than a critical tool for explaining and decoding images, but actually serves to release the image, suspending it momentarily from political or economic imperatives to become the structure, content, and departure point for artistic subjectivity.

From October 4 to December 21, 2012, e-flux is proud to present Steyerl's first solo exhibition in the US. The exhibition will premiere three new video works, Abstract, Adorno's Grey, and Guards, and include her video essay from 2004, November.

Legend has it that Theodor W. Adorno had the auditorium where he taught at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt painted grey to aid concentration. In Adorno's Grey, a team of conservators burrow into the wall of this auditorium hoping to reveal the layer of grey paint beneath it. A voiceover recounts an incident in 1969 when, after three female students approached and bore their breasts to him during a lecture, Adorno collected his papers and ran away in a panic. This would be his last lecture.

Hito Steyerl