Hannah Black at Kunstverein Braunschweig. Images courtesy of the artist and Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
Hannah Black at Kunstverein Braunschweig. Images courtesy of the artist and Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
Hannah Black at Kunstverein Braunschweig. Images courtesy of the artist and Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
Hannah Black at Kunstverein Braunschweig. Images courtesy of the artist and Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
Hannah Black at Kunstverein Braunschweig. Images courtesy of the artist and Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
Hannah Black at Kunstverein Braunschweig. Images courtesy of the artist and Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
Hannah Black at Kunstverein Braunschweig. Images courtesy of the artist and Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
Hannah Black at Kunstverein Braunschweig. Images courtesy of the artist and Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
Hannah Black at Kunstverein Braunschweig. Images courtesy of the artist and Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
Artist: Hannah Black
Venue: Kunstverein Braunschweig
Exhibition Title: Dede, Eberhard, Phantom
Curated by: Jule Hillgärtner, Nele Kaczmarek
Date: December 7, 2019 – February 16, 2020
Hannah Black’s artistic work takes the form of performances, installations, film and video works. The exhibition Dede, Eberhard, Phantom was created following her invitation to Kunstverein Braunschweig. In the video elements of the show, Hannah Black uses footage from three interviews at increasing degrees of removal from three subjects – two historical, one fictional – whose lives were, in different ways, dedicated to the organization of perception. The interviewees speak intimately and personally about their encounters with the elusive figures referred to in the title.
The structure of the video elements reflects the sensory regimes established by each figure. In the Dede part of the work, Ramey Ward, daughter of the groundbreaking Hollywood film editor Dede Allen, describes her mother’s life and career, as well as their relationship. This footage is treated as a means of editing – cutting, joining, and separating – the other two.
The Eberhard thread references a 2014 exhibition at Kunstverein Braunschweig by another artist, Clemens von Wedemeyer. This previous exhibition was based on Wedemeyer’s research into the history of the building, which in the 1930s was a language research institute headed by Eberhard Zwirner, grandfather of the gallerist David Zwirner. This footage is positioned as a framing device referring to the specific context of Kunstverein Braunschweig and the larger structure of art institutionality.
The central substance of the work is an interview with Raymond Pinto, a performer in the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera and sometime understudy for the title role, who speaks obliquely about the functional aspects of the performance and his role in it.
The video elements of the exhibition are accompanied by sculptural elements based on simple wooden grids.
Hannah Black (*1981 in Manchester, UK, lives in New York City) obtained an MFA in Art Writing at Goldsmiths College, London in 2013 and completed the Whitney Independent Study Program, New York in the following year. Recent solo projects were realized at mumok, Vienna (2017), Chisenhale Gallery, London (2017), Eden Eden, Bortolozzi, Berlin and Performance Space, New York (2019).
Curators: Jule Hillgärtner, Nele Kaczmarek
The exhibition Dede, Eberhard, Phantom has been made possible by:
BS|ENERGY
Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur
Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin
The Kunstverein Braunschweig e.V. is supported by:
Stadt Braunschweig, Kulturinstitut
