Walk & Talk

HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark would like to tie in with social themes in the exhibition space that have gained renewed urgency with the Black Lives Matter movement. The exhibitions by Doreen Garner and Kevin Jerome Everson thus currently focus attention on the artistic work of two African-American artists.

In the experimental film works of Kevin Jerome Everson, black people are in the foreground, often shown as part of their work culture and performing everyday activities. Thereby, the artist and filmmaker avoids clear-cut situations and rash judgments of people. The focus is on a questioning and searching gaze that explores the boundaries and freedoms of black lives. Everson’s film works, however, are by no means exhausted in the documentary. Through his precise use of formal techniques of the medium of film, the artist approaches abstraction and allows his films to emerge as self-referential works. Everson’s films raise various questions, which we want to explore together: ​“From which specific perspective do we look at the world? And what might be a form of seeing that would be adequate to the exhibition’s point of view?”

On the second level is an exhibition by Doreen Garner, featuring sculptural works by the young New York artist. Garner expresses the effects of colonialism and racism in her works, turning to the problematic relationships between ​“race” and the medical system in America. Her particular focus is on the exploitation of black slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries, whose bodies were abused through medical experimentation in the name of progress. Her sculptural works resemble body fragments and pieces of flesh, revealing jagged surfaces and wounds; at the same time, she beautifies and elevates the battered bodies with beads and cleverly arranged valuables. Undoubtedly, many people experience suffering, but the exclusion of the black body from the realm of the human through racism reveals a dimension of its own. Doreen Garner’s exhibition makes us aware of how historical events and institutions are implicated in racism — and how to resist it.