Katja Davar

With "Electric Spinning Gaze," Katja Davar examines the theme of metamorphosis on stage as well as in nature through the processes of folding and unfolding, the opening and closing of wings, thus embracing the inseparability of culture and nature. Katja Davar's starting point is an examination of the serpentine dance by American dancer, choreographer, and inventor Loïe Fuller (1862–1928), who, shortly before the advent of film, developed abstract choreographies with sweeping silk costumes, colorful lighting, and projections with the Laterna Magica. In Katja Davar’s project, the silk fabric becomes a dynamic projection surface, captured by a high-speed camera that seems to evoke artistic studies of light and color, along with the poetic literature of that period. Whether the patterns of movement on the theme derive from the flight of butterflies or the spreading movement of wings, they invariably oscillate between natural motion and digital illusion. A series of large-format abstract pencil drawings complements the film material–inspired by Matthias Grünewald’s garment studies from around 1511–and suggestive of figures on a stage in which the contorted plissés seem to have replaced the human figure. 

Since 2015 Marie-Luise Angerer has been professor for media theory at the Universität Potsdam. Her scientific research is focused on the relationship of the body and the media technologies, the social interactions of phantasies and media as well as the media theory of the posthuman. Ilka Becker is an art historian and critic, and she writes for magazines and dailies. Katja Davar, b. 1968, lives in Cologne and is Professor for Drawing at the art and design academy in Mainz. Her work has its starting point in the schematized world of the coded sign systems. Katja Davar combines different topics, the history of the diagrammatic imperative, as well as the history of drawing as an artistic medium. This leads to a complex reference system involving various perspectives in drawing and a spectacular animated film and video work. Adding to her fruitful solo-exhibitions are numerous participations in international renown group shows about media since 1994. Her work is collected intensively by German collections, including the The Daimler Art Collection. Georg Elben is director of the Skuplturenmuseum Glaskasten Marl. He worked as a curator, art historian, and critic, before he was nominated to direct the Glaskasten, after which he led the Videonale in Bonn for a decade. Matthia Löbke, born 1963, is artistic director of the Kunstverein Heilbronn, is curator and publishes monographic catalogs, of artists including Yoshitaka Amano, Markus Lüpertz, Olaf Metzel, Enoc Perez, Michael Schmidt, Michael Venezia, Silke Wagner. In Cologne she was an assistant to Donald Judd and gained her doctorate on Dan Flavin.