Una SZEEMANN & Bohdan STEHLIK
area: Fine Arts
Key Facts
nationality
Switzerlandarea
Fine Artsresidence
Zurichrecommending institution
freiraum quartier21 INTERNATIONALtime period
February 2013 - February 2013SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS (Una Szeemann)
2012 Assumption Over Matter Townhouse Zurich, Switzerland
2008 White Nights Dark Dreams CAC Ticino, Bellinzona, Switzerland
Gallery Blancpain Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland
2006 Montewood Hollyverità Alexandre Pollazzon Gallery, London, United Kingdom
2005 Kodama Gallery Tokyo, Japan
Haswellediger & Co. Gallery, New York, USA
Selected group shows
2012
Double Feature Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany
Utopie Gesamtkunstwerk 21er Haus, Belvedere, Vienna, Austria
F G . F T Envoy Enterprises & NP Contemporary Art Center, New York, USA
2011
No Ever ACE Museum, Los Angeles, USA
Viel Lärm um Alles: Barockes in der zeitgenössischen Kunst Haus für Kunst Uri, Switzerland
Swiss Art Award Art Basel, Switzerland
Merz World Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich, Switzerland
Inszenierungen und Andere Spiele Haus für Kunst Uri, Altdorf, Switzerland
2009
EXPosition of mythology - ELectronic technology Nam June Paik Art Center, Seoul, Korea
2008
Decoder: Third Biennial for Video Art CAC Vilnius, Lithuania
Biennale Cuvée OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria
2007
Vilnius is Blurring Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino, Italy
Hamsterwheel Venice Biennale, Italy
Contour: Biennial for Video Art, Decoder Mechelen, Belgium
00s-The history of a decade that has not yet been named Lyon Biennial, France
Hamsterwheel Printemps de Septembre a Toulouse, France
Hamsterwheel SantaMoniCA, Barcelona, Spain
2006
Beat it Haswellediger & Co. Gallery, New York, USA
Die Vergaenglichkeit des Schoenen Goerlitz, Germany
A Tale of Two Cities Busan Biennale, Korea
2005
Baroque and Neobaroque The Hell of Beautiful Domus Artium 2002, Salamanca, Spain
Superstars Kunsthalle Wien, Austria
Scene de Vie Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris, France
Transcontinental Nomadenoase Projects Art Basel Miami Beach, USA
2004
Atelier Europa Munich Kunstverein, Germany
Samedi video Air de Paris Gallery, Paris, France
The Beauty of Failure, The Failure of Beauty Fondacion Miro’, Barcelona, Spain
Swiss Institute, New York, USA
2003
Dream big, get out, go play Schindler House, Los Angeles, USA
2002
Geld und Wert / Das letzte Tabu Expo ‘02 Biel, Switzerland
Home Scenes Schindler House, Los Angeles, USA
2000
Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin, Germany
1998
Art Pace Stockholm, Sweden
Terra Nullius
-working title-
Video, photographs, collages
The installation is built around a video projection showing the shadow on a pavement and wall of a flag slowly waving in the wind.
By just showing the shadow, one cannot discern what the flag stands for. The subtraction of identity leaves only the symbolic meaning of a flag, giving us the ground to speculate on undefined territories.
In this work, we venture into a personal exploration about the idea of no man’s lands, covering the span between a fictive land to the extrapolation of every day objects that could belong from everywhere to nowhere.
Terra Nullius I
2013 – ongoing project
Video installation
Two video projections in B/W, loop 10:00 and 20:00, wood, weights
The slowly waving shadow of a flag on pavement and wall was filmed, and is projected on a wooden, L-shaped stage, resulting in a double break of the image. This double projection extends on the surrounding architecture of the exhibitions space.
As the flag’s shape distorts and shatters it’s own image by moving, completely deprived of identity, only the symbolic meaning is left. The shadow’s anonymity fills with the imagination of a flag-less land: a no man’s land.
Facing the flag setting is a wooden corner with a second video projection. The corner represents the core for injecting and ejecting imaginary visions.
The video shows an upside down landscape, where amorphous shapes appear intermittently and move in a stuttering pace until suddenly disappearing again. The black forms could be holes in the landscape or other dimensions overlaying the existing one.
If the shadow still has the recognizable appearance of a flag, with the invitation to imagine an undefined territory, the abstract black forms are a further progression to fill the projections with different possibilities of a Terra Nullius.