Sexual Intellectual

With the exhibition Sexual Intellectual, the collective KVTV curates its second exhibition in Frankfurt a. M. in the temporary space The Reference, which was initiated by KVTV. Sexual Intellectual shows new works by artists Catherina Cramer, Nicholas Grafia and Daniel Topka. All three are representatives of a new subjective realism in contemporary art. As the title of the exhibition suggests, the artists deal with the themes of sex, gender and identity in their works. How is sexual identity produced? How does the social construction of heteronormativity succeed? How can sexual identities look beyond the norm? What potential lies in the ambivalence between the social norm and physical lust, drive, sex and violence? How can sexuality and sexual identity be expressed in painting, installation, video and performance in an aesthetic and self-determined way? The exhibited works advance the process already underway of making marginalized themes and sexual identities visible. Through art, cracks in the construct of heteronormativity are revealed and made visible as a breeding ground for the new.

Catherina Cramer shows her video installation A Boxed Rebellion. The video work is shown in a wall cabinet covered with trapezoidal sheet metal and is a garish, futuristic chamber play. "Let's take a look on the inside. The perfect place to store yourself is a self storage. With these words Cramer's video begins and takes the audience into an oppressive world of self-"storage". The film takes place in a large storage facility. Instead of objects that are normally stored in such boxes, different groups of people stay in the individual tin boxes. One does not know whether they live there permanently, or whether they have simply withdrawn and locked themselves in to ask questions or carry out a transformation of their bodies. The alternately boring and then actively creative gathering of the individual container groups is followed by soap bubbles that appear and burst above the heads of the gathered people. Before bursting, they are filled with spoken content, past experiences or invitations. Laboratory experiments on unknown parts of the body reminiscent of Frankenstein also appear in the pictures, and lead the viewer to assume that body and mind are changed by this transformation. The end is kept open, and a feeling of parallel worlds remains. The prints hanging on the walls of the cupboard serve as a backdrop in the video work and now grow into the exhibition space like the trapezoidal sheet metal box.

Two paintings and a video by Nicholas Grafia are on display at Sexual Intellectual. The paintings Legit / Threat (Meet Me at the Airport) and Employee of the Month (Average Black Drag) reflect Grafia's preoccupation with questions of identity politics, (queer) subversion and postcolonialism. The artist explores the question of how our bodies are formed by our habits of seeing and looking. The focus is on the investigation of dominant gender roles, the questioning of memory culture and common notions of masculinity. At the same time Grafia creates new, alternative role models and asks how these can emerge from the old ones. The video The Accursed Ones, which is shown in the basement, is also about the past that appears new in the present. It visualizes a performance by Grafia, which was created in collaboration with Mikołaj Sobczak and was first performed at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw in cooperation with the Warsaw-based drag activist and dancer Uel. The performance interweaves various narratives, historical events and cultural practices. Ghosts from the past are conjured up in the present to create future utopias in various ways.

Daniel Topka shows his works created especially for the exhibition o. T. (American Crime Story Season 2) and o. T. (The Advocate: Versace speaks). Both works are inspired by the fashion designer Gianni Versace and the series The Assassination of Gianni Versace. o. T. (American Crime Story Season 2) is a ceramic that takes up the cover of the series. The artist often works with ceramics and understands his reliefs as material expression of thoughts. The second work o. T. (The Advocate: Versace speaks) is a color installation consisting of three laminated prints on rainbow foil. It takes up an interview with Gianni Versace from 1995 and processes text and image excerpts from it. Daniel Topka's work focuses on ideas and his interest in social constructs. Versace is the godfather of the struggle for the recognition of same-sex love and sexuality in society. The fashion designer's violent death is still associated with his homosexuality and shows how fragile sexual equality still is despite all progress. The artist is particularly interested in this continuity in subjects and biographies. Not to hunt for something new, but to uncover traces of the present is a demand on his own artistic work.

Artist biographies:

Catherina Cramer (1988, Wesel) studied performance and video from 2015 to 2019 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and at the Kunstakademie Münster with Shana Moulton and Daniele Buetti. She completed her studies as a master student with Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. The artist lives and works in Frankfurt am Main and Düsseldorf.

Nicholas Grafia (1990, Angeles City, Philippines) studied British, American and Postcolonial Studies at the Westfälische Wilhelms University in Münster until 2016 and parallel at the Kunstakademie Münster with Shana Moulton and Daniele Buetti. In July 2019 Grafia will complete his studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy as a master student with Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. The artist lives and works in Düsseldorf.

Daniel Topka (1992, Waldshut) has been studying sculpture with Manfred Pernice at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin since 2015. In 2017 he completed a guest semester at the School of Visual Arts in New York. The artist lives and works in Berlin.

Photos: Anton Sahler

Curated by KVTV