Millennium Court Arts Centre is delighted to present an exhibition of large scale animation and film by German artist Brigitte Zieger.
Zieger employs a range of media from drawing and cut-out to video and sculpture. Though her work may initially appear ideal and harmonious this perception disintegrates upon closer examination – explosive charges lurk everywhere. In this exhibition of work entitled Wallpapered Zieger comments on the relationship between world events and the process of interpreting and conveying information via the Media. Collecting motifs and images online and also using press photographs from newspapers and television news she incorporates this source material into her diverse, exquisitely animated ‘wallpapers’ and ‘tapestries’.
The aesthetic for these works draws on Toile de Jouy. Original 18th century Toile wallpapers often comprised elaborate imagery expressing commentary on contemporary society and the political events of the day. These dioramas could include vast vistas depicting colonized countries, with intimations of conquest, the exotic and endemic violence – their form sometimes reading like a comic strip. Zieger’s animations extend and develop the form. In her wallpapers kitsch, bucolic scenes become dangerously populated by threatening objects or people who move in and out of the scenery. The animation, Bewildered, presents an infinite rolling panoramic view in the heart of an imaginary forest (such as those described in the ‘colonial period’ and often depicted in 18th century wallpapers) – a scene of nature reclaiming the political landscape.
The juxtaposition of familiar domestic décor and potentially violent action or destruction provides a perfect metaphor for the presence of news within the privacy of the home – a disturbing background to daily life. Zieger’s richly textured work presents many possibilities and seeks to question what exactly we put in our homes, on our walls and what realities these help to soften and mask.
http://www.brigittezieger.com/
About the Artist:
Brigitte Zieger is a Paris-based German artist whose work embraces a range of media. She has shown internationally in numerous exhibitions including Abracadabra, Tate Gallery London (1999), Prop Fiction, White Columns New York (1997), Bang ! Bang ! at CCA Kunsthalle Andratx Mallorca (2011), Fabulations et Vagabondages, Contemporary Art Center Villa du Parc in Annemasse (2005) and Tirs Reloaded/Pacific Standard Time, Here is Elsewhere Gallery Los Angeles (2012). Recent Solo Shows include Women are Different from Men, Odile Ouizeman Gallery in Paris (2011), Counter-Memories at Weigand Gallery in Berlin (2012) and with Kara Walker, Shadow’s Dream the Man, l’Aître St.Maclou Rouen (2010).
