The Swedish artist Ann-Sofi Sidén shows “Warte Mal!” at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, a video installation about the German-Czech border region. Following the collapse of Communism and the opening of the borders in 1989, a new business sector developed at this geopolitical intersection: mass prostitution.
Hundreds of girls from all over Eastern Europe work here as prostitutes, attempting to halt passing, usually German, cars by shouting “Warte Mal!” (“Wait a minute!”) – often the first words that the girls learn in German.
Ann-Sofi Sidén spent a period of nine months in this city, creating a dense portrait with her hand camera, which is composed of various filmic components. The artist expands the documentary shots with architectonic, sculptural, photographic and performative dimensions into a conceptual whole and sets them in an interrelationship to one another in a spatial architecture. The manifold formal modes of expression enter into an interaction, resulting in a network of different perspectives and focal points that captivate us and grant insights into a closed, secret world that otherwise remains hidden.
The exhibition is presented in conjunction with the Project Migration, initiated by the Federal Cultural Foundation, and provides an opportunity for a first artistic encounter with the theme of migration, which will be the focal point of the program of the Kölnischer Kunstverein for the year 2005.
Biography
Ann-Sofi Sidén was born in 1962 in Stockholm. She lives and works in Berlin.
Exhibitions (selected): Musée d´Art de la Ville de Paris (2001); Berlin Biennale (2001); Villa Arson, Nice (2000); Venice Biennale (1999), Secession, Vienna (1999); “Nuit Blance”, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1998), Biennale de São Paolo (1998); “Zonen der Verstörung”, Steirischer Herbst (1997); “See What it Feels Like”, Rooseum, Malmö; Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm (1995); “P.S. 1. Studio Artists 194″, P.S. 1, New York (1994).
