Lili Reynaud-Dewar - TEETH GUMS MACHINES FUTURE SOCIETY

In collaboration with Kunstverein in Hamburg and de Vleeshal in Middelburg

Lili Reynaud-Dewar (La Rochelle, France, 1975) opens Museion's 2017 exhibition programme. Hailed as one of the most original artists on the contemporary scene, Reynaud-Dewar explores the sexual, racial and political conditioning and stereotypes that influence our cultural identity. The spacious areas on the fourth floor of the museum play host to installations, film works, videos and objects which revolve around two main themes. On one hand it explores the human body, or rather a particular, intimate element of it: teeth. In a film and performance piece set in Memphis, a city known for its racial and social conflicts, the artist explores stories, practices and identities that gravitate around grills, the teeth decorations that are a status symbol in rap and hip hop culture. Another key element of the show is the essay "A Cyborg Manifesto" published by Donna Haraway in 1985.

Lili RD returns to Museion after appearing in the exhibition staged by guest curator Pierre Bal-Blanc with the video Live Through That?! (2014), which featured her dancing naked through the empty museum. For TEETH GUMS MACHINES FUTURE SOCIETY the artist has produced a new video for Bolzano, related to the previous work.

Museion 2017 Lili Reynaud-Dewar's work resonates with the themes of Museion's 2017 programme, which explores cultural identity, diversity and the multifaceted phenomenon of multiculturalism. The French artist is also featured in the exhibition The Power of Photography, with her 2014 video Live Through That?! (current, on till September 17). Like several in the show, Reynaud-Dewar's piece presents a multilayered, complex vision of reality and the contemporary individual. From March 23 the photography exhibition will be added to with a selection of works by Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin, Ulrike Ottinger and Cindy Sherman, from the Sammlung Goetz of Munich.

The issue of identity and therefore the various ramifications of diversity is also explored by guest curator Nicolò Degiorgis (Bolzano, 1985), in the light of current events in Europe. His exhibition reinterprets the concepts of "Heimat" and homeland and is preceded by a show of various artists' books in the Passage area of the building, and in parallel, around the local area in places related to the themes of the books.

Exploring diversity means forging new mental images and counter-narrations, as is the case in the work of Peter Friedl (Oberneukirchen, Austria 1960), who on May 26 presents Teatro, his first solo exhibition in Italy. His aesthetic research revolves around the notion of theatre as a mental space to try out new models of narration and representation. The museum thus becomes a stage for exercises in historical and political imagination. The exhibition presents well-known works, but also new pieces created specifically for the occasion. Lastly, 2017 continues the focus on Museion's collection, with a show of large installations and the solo exhibition of Irma Blank in the study collection.