Alexandra Hopf
VITRINE Project Space presents the first UK solo presentation of Berlin artist Alexandra Hopf’s installation and film works. The gallery will host a site-specific installation accompanied by a cinema screening of Hopf’s films ‘…oder sollte dies eine unbekannte Mauer sein?’ and ‘Future Show’. Working with the unique aspects of the 16 metre long window gallery positioned on the public square, Hopf reverses the function of the window display by introducing a curtain across the space and obscuring the viewers gaze; raising questions about private and public space.
The installation continues the artist’s “ongoing investigation into objects of art that have vanished from the field of vision” (future show, 2009/10) and focuses on the dialectics of desire and displacement.
A neon work 'A Private Collection', is placed against the curtain. The public square becomes an arena and the viewer could be compared to a spectator of the stage attending the opening of a curtain call or finding himself in the role of an actor waiting for the curtain to open.
Working with video, painting and objects, Hopf reconstructs the avantgarde within her own museological approach. The installation series “Future Show” for instance, draws on Surrealist modes of display formulated by designer Friedrich Kiesler, recruiting it as an allegory for contemporary display, artifice and the generation of desire. The video work “.... oder sollte dies eine unbekannte Mauer sein?” („... or should this be an unknown wall?”) resembles an archive of pictures, combining style icons of design and architecture, archive photos of twentieth century theatre and film, as well as scientific recordings in the staging of a lucid dream. The individual images are sequenced and blended together so as to produce additional afterimages.
Curator Alys Williams
Generously supported by Neon & Signmakers
Alexandra Hopf was born in Kassel, Germany, and now lives and works in Berlin. Her work has been presented in group exhibitions internationally, most recently "Einfühlung und Reflexion", Arthena Foundation, Düsseldorf; “Practices Remain”, Regina Rex, New York, USA; "Magic Show", Hayward Touring Exhibition, curated by Sally O`Reilly and Jonathan Allen, Scorpios`s Garden, Temporäre Kunsthalle, Berlin and the Prague Biennale. She has held solo shows throughout Germany, including most recently at Berlin’s Cruise & Callas and in 2011 at Verein Rosa Luxemburg-Platz e.v. She is represented by Cruise & Callas Gallery in Berlin.