12/9 - 18/10/2008
Margaret Harvey Gallery/St Albans/UK
7 Hatfield Road, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL1 3RR (20 min by train from Kings X)
Private View: Wednesday 10th September '08, 6 - 8pm
15/5 - 29/5/2008
HDLU: PM & Bacva Galerija/Trg zrtava fasizma bb/Zagreb/Croatia
For information about the exhibition in Zagreb in Croatian please click here.
For images from the exhibition in Zagreb please click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/margaretakern/
Clothes for Living and Dying/Odjeca za Zivot i Smrt brings together two interrelated projects, in order to raise questions and explore the relationship of clothing to social, cultural and gendered constructions of identity.
Graduation Dresses is an ongoing project consisting of a series of photographs Kern takes of young women, who have recently graduated from secondary schools in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their dresses made by the artist's mother, are based on images found on the Internet and in fashion magazines, of celebrities wearing haute couture dresses.
Clothes for Death is an ongoing research based project documenting women in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina who prepare clothes in which they wish to be buried. Deeply moved upon hearing about this relatively unknown and quite private custom Kern set out to research it further. The resulting work intimately engages with the lives of women whose identities have been shaped by turbulent historical, political and cultural currents.
A fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Pennina Barnett, Dr Alex Rotas, Matthew Shaul and Margareta Kern, is available at respective touring venues or by contacting Amisha Karia, UH Galleries Support Officer T: 01707 284290.
"Zenski Isus fotografkinje Margarete Kern", pise Miljenko Jergovic za Jutarnji List.
"Na jednoj slici, snimljenoj u Orubici, u Hrvatskoj, zena sjedi na otomanu ispred jeftine zidne tapiserije na kojoj je reproducirana posljednja vecera. Bosa je, ruke drzi u krilu. Njezina glava nasla se tamo gdje na slici sjedi Isus Krist. Ne bismo to, vjerojatno, ni primijetili da nije zeninog izraza lica, koji nije ni tuzan ni zamisljen. Ona niti pozira, niti je sasvim opustena. Izgleda kao onaj koji ceka. Taj zenski Isus na fotografiji Margarete Kern jedan je od mogucih odgovora na pitanje zasto uopce fotografirati."
"In one of the photographs, taken in Orubica, in Croatia, a woman is sitting on her bed, in front of a cheap wall tapestry of the 'Last Supper'. She is barefoot, her hands in her lap. Her head is in the place where in the tapestry picture sits Jesus Christ. We may have not even noticed that, were it not for the expression on her face, which is neither sad nor contemplative. She is neither posing, nor completely relaxed. She looks like someone who is waiting. That female Jesus in the photograph of Margareta Kern is one of the possible answers to the question why take photographs."
To read the exhibition review "Female Jesus of the artist Margareta Kern" by Miljenko Jergovic translated into English please click here.
The exhibition has been kindly supported by: Gradski ured za obrazovanje, kulturu i sport grada Zagreba / Department of Education, Culture and Sport - City of Zagreb, Ministarstvo kulture Republike Hrvatske/ Ministry of Culture of Republic of Croatia, The British Council, Arts Council England, The University of Hertfordshire Galleries and Hrvatsko Drustvo Likovnih Umjetnika Zagreb/Croatian Association of Artists, Zagreb.
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A Short Hi-story of My Family
A performative talk by Margareta Kern
Friday 20th June 2008, 7.30pm, free
The Courtauld Institute, Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre, London
'A Short Hi-story of My Family’ is a performative talk weaving threads between (hi)stories of the artist’s grandmother, mother and her self, through videos, photographs, personal documents, Gobelin embroideries and copies of haute couture dresses. By excavating stories and creating images, cutting and re-stitching them again, this live collage will explore the relationship between translation and language, labour and gender, migration and art. Wearing her own original copy of a haute couture dress, made by her mother, Kern will create new narratives and myths in an attempt to reorder, re-imagine and re-tailor History.
This performance within The Courtauld Institute of Art is part of East Wing VIII: On Time.
To download the publicity poster in pdf please click here.
www.eastwing8.com
image: Grand Mother’s Gobelin (after Self-Portrait with Daughter, by Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun), 2008 |
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The National Review of Live Art - Performing Rights Glasgow
Sunday 10th February 2008
The Performance Panel is led by the artist Lois Weaver and writer Adrian Heathfield and brings together the artists Guillermo Gómez-Peña (Mexico/USA), Jenny Sealey (UK), Adalet R Garmiany (Kurdistan-Iraq/UK), Margareta Kern (Croatia/Bosnia/UK), John Jordan (UK), Ange Taggart (UK), and Arvand DashtAray and Sara Reyhani of Virgule Performing Arts Company (Iran) for presentations, creative interventions, and discussions around questions of performance and human rights.
'Cry me cats and dogs', a review by Alex Rotas of the Performing Rights Glasgow on Axis .
Raimi Gbadamosi interviews Margareta Kern & Grace Ndiritu for Axis Dialogue - Artists Margareta Kern and Grace Ndiritu presented artworks at Performing Rights Glasgow this February. Shortly after the festival they met Raimi Gbadamosi in London to discuss their current projects, aspirations as artists, and the challenges and complexities of operating in today's art world. |
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CLOTHES FOR DEATH
ICIA Bath, 12 Sept 2007 - 4 Jan 2008
Solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts, Bath. More on Clothes for Death.
"The artist has depicted all her subjects with great dignity, allowing the images to speak for themselves, creating a real sense of these women's lives as well as their preparations for their deaths. " Review by a-n magazine, Nov 2007 issue, read more.
"Kern with a pure unstinting gaze and a creative empathy captures them in a moment of still contemplation, powerfully poignant in light of future stillness." The Big Issue, Oct 2007.
Beth Greenacre interviews Margareta Kern for ArtRabbit |
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