outLine - Artists' Artists'

opening: saturday 24th march from 17.00 - 20.00 hrs
you are very welcome!
exhibition runs until the 21th of april 2007

The artists' artists' is divided into six episodes.
Each episode is curated by one of six established artists; Uwe Laysiepen, Ulay (D), John Hilliard (GB), Roy Villevoye (NL), Marijke van Warmerdam (NL), Katharina Grosse (D) en Paul Kooiker (NL) who act as guest curators. Each artist introduces a younger colleague artist. The artist and guest curator are present at the opening.

Paul Kooiker, professor at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam presents Daya Cahen *. Cahen has graduated with the thesis ‘Myth shaping of Mussolini’ at the University of Amsterdam.
In 2006 she completed her study photography at the Rietveld Academy. Since 2004 and up to the present, she is an assistant to Koos Breukel.

The work of Daya Cahen shows in a miraculous way the capacity to link her own reflection and perspective with the theme and her commitment’. Media manipulation happens everywhere in the world, in various degree. In which degree this happens, depends on the country and the prevailing political climate. The way we as spectators interpret images and how they influence us is what Daya Cahen is interested in. In her work, Cahen examines the possibilities of the media to manipulate the viewer and the power that comes with it. Representation of icons, gestures and particularly the functioning of propaganda in pictural language play an important role. By taking iconographical pictures, symbols or gestures out of their context, Cahen tries to create/spread doubt about the original meaning or about the interpretation of that meaning. Cahen examines these basic assumptions in all kinds of ways and uses different media for this such as photography, film, newspapers and internet.

The starting point frequently is a picture or a text from the media, which she places out of context, reuses, realigns or brings back in a different way in photography or film. By linking the political with the everyday and personal, combining archive material with contemporary pictures and blurring the border between fact and fiction, Cahen tries to get insight in the complexity of manipulation by the media. In outLINE Daya Cahen shows a large number of photos and the film ‘The Stalin that was played by me‘. It is a project on her meeting with the grandson who is the spitting image of Josef Stalin. The work is about a confrontation between two people from different worlds, who develop a bond in spite of their different ideas. More than just a look at the life of Stalin’s grandson Yevgeni Jugashvili or a study on the representation of icons and the mechanisms of propaganda, this project is about power and the abuse of it and the ambiguous position you take as an artist when you examine emotionally charged topics like these.

Cahens work could recently be seen in the videoscreening ‘Distorted Fabric‘ in the Appel in Amsterdam and on the IDFA in 2006. The film ‘The Stalin that was played by me’ was selected for the ‘Short Film Competition’ on the 57th International Film Festival Berlin 2007.