Press Release - Treasure Box 2011

@ KOH-I-NOOR www.koh-i-noor.org

PRESS RELEASE
Berit Basten: Treasure Box
Opening March 4 5-8 pm
Gallery Hours: March 5-9 12-6 pm

Koh-i-noor is pleased to announce Treasure Box, an exhibition of new work by Berit Basten. The exhibition consists of three works concerned with the production of power, gender and desire in the field of vision.

On March 10 1914 Mary Richardson, a militant Suffragette entered the National Gallery in London. After having made her way through a succession of rooms, she ended up in front of the famous reclining nude by Diego Velázquez, the Toilet of Venus (’the Rokeby Venus’ ) (1647-51). Apparently in deep contemplation she stood still in front of the painting, before suddenly pulling out a meat chopper from underneath her coat. Within minutes she smashed the protective glass in front of the canvas and placed seven penetrating cuts across the area of the figure of Venus.

In the work Reconstruction of the Damage Caused by Mary Richardson’s 1914 Attack on Diego Velázquez’s the Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery London Berit Basten reproduces the marks from Richardson’s iconoclastic act. Central to the installation is a large-scale photograph of a lit studio backdrop inflicted with seven precisely placed cuts through the surface of the paper. Emptying the original image of both the model and pictorial meaning, Basten points to the institutional construction, in which the gesture, as well as the image, takes part.

In another photographic work, Nine of Fifty-Seven Pearls in a Pearl Necklace, Basten studies the pearl necklace as cultural artifact and iconic representation of femininity. The series of nine small photographs show a selection of natural pearls, detached from their original placing in the string. Exposed to the harsh flash of the camera the historically desired objects of power, status and wealth come to signify a fragile femininity-on-display.

The piece Ballistic Curtain covers the front window of the exhibition space. It is made from Ballistic Nylon, a bulletproof material invented by the DuPont Corporation for the American army during World War II. Historically the fabric showed not to be completely efficient against bullets, for which reason it has now been replaced by the more resistant Kevlar. The work plays with the vulnerability of the viewing situation as well as the expectation of the beholder. Denying the beholder of any visual access to the exhibition space from the street, the curtain both stirs and exposes the visual desire at heart of any viewing situation.

Berit Basten (born 1973) holds an MFA from the Royal Danish Academy of fine Arts (2004-2010). She works conceptually based with photography, text and installation.

The exhibition was supported by the Danish Arts Council.