|
Mit der estnischen Künstlerin Kai Kaljo beginnt die Knoll
Galerie Wien die Saison in den neuen Räumen in der Gumpendorfer
Straße 18.
Bekannt geworden ist Kai Kaljo mit ihrem Video „A Loser“,
das in den vergangenen Jahren bei vielen Ausstellungen gezeigt
wurde, beispielsweise in „After the Wall“ in Stockholm,
Berlin, Budapest..., und wird noch im Dezember dieses Jahres im
Sprengel Museum Hannover gezeigt.
Unsere Ausstellung zeigt neben „A Loser“ neue Videos
und Photoarbeiten. Die Künstlerin wird zur Eröffnung
in Wien sein.
Kai Kaljo wurde 1959 geboren und lebt in der estnischen
Hauptstadt Tallinn. „
Kai Kaljo's videos have surely a therapeutic effect. Although there
was much talk of the inanity of the differentiating the concepts
of the West and East at the exhibition „After the Wall“,
with the Berlin Wall no longer there, because the artists are travelling
and the global consumer culture has permeated everywhere. There
persist invisible walls in real life, though. Hence Kai confuses
the customary hierarchies in her videos. She herself selects, not
expecting to be elected.“
„
... all videos by Kai come about playful, gambolling and easy-going.
Although they may concern exceedingly painful and deeply personal/global
topics.“
Heie Treier, from the catalogue „Halfway to Venice“#
... Whether one calls Kai Kaljo’s magic moment a "glimpse”,
the "punctum” or a "profane illumination”,
is irrelevant because the terms culminate into one and the same
appearance of the meaningful coincidence. In 58 seconds, she brings
an experience that has occupied the theory of fascination for over
one hundred years into the present. Experiencing something puzzling
is captivating because it takes place in an entirely everyday context.
In Benjamin’s words, "we do not get any further by pathetically
or fanatically underscoring the puzzling side of what is puzzling;
rather, we permeate the secret only to the point that we find it
again in the everyday, through a dialectic optic that recognizes
the everyday as impermeable and the impermeable as everyday.
Søren Grammel in the Videonale 9 catalogue
…
Kai Kaljo's videos have surely a therapeutic effect. Although there
was much talk of the inanity of the differentiating the concepts
of the West and East at the exhibition "After the Wall" (Stockhom,
Moderna Museet 1999), with the Berlin Wall no longer there, because
the artists are travelling and the global consumer culture has
permeated everywhere. There persist invisible walls in real life,
though. Hence Kai confuses the customary hierarchies in her videos.
She herself selects, not expecting to be elected…
Heie Treier in the catalogue "Halfway
to Venice"
..."A Loser " is a happy sad video. ..."A Loser” is
not only about the Baltic state of mind in the first years of freedom.
Having seen it in different contexts since the first encounter, "A
Loser” has grown into a kind of monument to the general state
of mind around the turn of the millennium. We are bombarded with
information about how we feel. How we should feel, where do we
come from, to where we should go, what we desire, what we lack
and so on. And so we begin to feel a kind of paranoia, that someone
is laughing about our attempts to order our lives or find contentment? …
John Peter Nilsson in the catalogue "Central
Station"
|
