Die Berliner Sammlung Dr. Carl Theodor Gottlob ... - KUNST Magazin

Wangechi Mutu: Mask, 006, mixed media collage, collage
© The Saatchi Gallery
Aus diesem Grund wurde in seine Formung
– im Lauf der Jahrtausende und über Kontinente
hinweg – immer wieder so viel gestalterischer
Eifer gesteckt. Nur durch die kulturell geprägten
Modellierungsunternehmungen der Gesellschaft
kann das „unbekannte“, physikalische, natürliche
Selbst, der „Fremde in uns“ gesellschaftlich
kodiert und „eigen“ gemacht werden. Auf der
Körperoberfläche wird immer wieder der Kampf
zwischen Natur und Kultur ausgetragen: Er wird
gedehnt, bedeckt, bemalt, geschnitten, genäht. Die
Mittel, um den sozial anerkannten Kanon dem
naturgegebenen Körper aufzuzwingen, erleben heute
eine hochgradige Technisierung in ihrer Anwendung:
Die Beschäftigung mit Sport, Chirurgie und Diäten
füllt Magazine, Talkshows und die Spam-gefüllten
Mailboxen jedes Computernutzers. Die Körperpolitik
in den Medien tendiert dazu, ihre Macht über das
biologische Leben hinaus auszudehnen, sie wird zur
Biopolitik. Über die hypertrophische voluminöse
Überzeichnung der geschlechtlichen Merkmale
hinaus wird dem fleischlichen Körper immer
weniger Ausdehnung in den dreidimensionalen
shaping of the body has been the object of so much
creative zeal. The “unknown” physically natural self,
the “stranger in us”, can only be socially codified and
assimilated through the culturally defined business
of shaping within society. The battle between nature
and culture is carried out again and again on the
surface of the body: it is stretched and covered,
painted and cut and sutured. The methods used to
force a socially acceptable canon upon the naturally
given body are currently being modified through the
application of the most sophisticated technologies
in the fields of sports, surgery and diets, which fill
the magazines, the talk-shows and the spam-flooded
inbox of every computer user. The body politics
in the media tend to extend their power beyond
biological life, becoming a bio-politics. In addition
to the hypertrophic, voluminous over-determination
of gender characteristics, the physical body receives
less and less expansion in three dimensional space.
The androgynous bodies of models on the catwalks
represent most clearly the tendency to structure the
body increasingly in two dimensional representation
– they have to be paper-thin, like two dimensional
images. And the models are supposed to be thin,
very thin: those who want to be allowed to parade
along the catwalk have to be as slender and subtle as
death; and death does occasionally pay them a visit.
Eating disorders – bulimia and anorexia – are the new
diseases this body politics has generated. In artistic
actions that are documented in film and photo, the
artist duo L. A. Raeven – two young Dutch twins
who have experienced anorexia within their own
body – explore and visualise the risks being spread in
our society by this body cult.
The overwhelming force of media images, the sexual
background information that is subliminally sent
directly to our senses, and the use of images of the
body to communicate impulses have, together, been
the major focal point of my artistic research since
the 0s. In order to complete my work on “Berlin
– Cultural Capital of Europe”, for an entire year I
collected the third page of the Berlin tabloid BZ,
where a half-naked pin-up appears every day; I poured
them into polyester and then mounted them on a
folding screen and exhibited them at the Academy
of Arts in . Using photocopies of the originals
I then constructed the installation “Un Anno” with
0 collages.
Twenty years later, during the exhibition marking the
anniversary of German Reunification in 00 , the
Academy coincidentally offered me the same wall to
exhibit a new work I made together with Tina Bara.
Here, too, the body – the female body – is the focus.
The project begins with photos from in which a