Kiki Seror’s second exhibition at I-20 consists of work that partially deals with espionage,
and how technology and language were combined and used as a subversive tool in the
past. She notes, “While ‘sight’ machines like photography and cinema were used by the
privileged,a rebel force depends on a coded form of communication – language for the
objectified.” In light of recent events, it is also true today. From this point of departure,
Seror draws parallels between the history and methods of espionage and some of the
unspoken tenets of feminism. Both can be considered a secret language, and she has
explored this connection in her new exhibition, Honest Espionage, Killer Whore.
All of the technical work in making her animations are done by the artist. The show will
include six digital animations and two duratrans lightboxes. For her installation in the
main gallery, All Her Crime, the individual titles use the language of Goethe’s Faust
and includes: She is here behind this wall that drips, and all her crime was a fond fantasy,
Kiss/Kill, and And you would kiss me, as if you wanted to kill me?.
In the second gallery, Seror’s installation, Sotto Voce: Victoria’s Nocturne, is based on
original footage shot by the artist from inside Dutch prostitute booths. The animated text,
in the artist’s hand, comes from F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu opera libretto.
In the East Room, her final animation is entitled Paradise Lost. This work is based on
the artist downloading MPEGs from adult websites, in which the artist removed the
image of the woman in the act.
In 2001 Kiki Seror had a solo exhibition at the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna, in
conjunction with Zürich Kosmos, which included an outdoor laser project in Vienna’s
Sigmund Freud Park. It was entitled Public Seduction and projected some new
answers to the same questions that Freud posed to Dora. This exhibition continues
as a web project of the same name, www.publicseduction.com.
Seror’s group shows in 2002 include Fusion Cuisine at the Deste Foundation for
Contemporary Art, Athens; Media Connection, The Triennale, Milan; and Glow:
Aspects of Light in Contemporary American Art, ArtPace and the University of Texas Art Gallery, San Antonio. Other venues include the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea (CGAC), Madrid; Tent, Rotterdam; the Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans; Momenta, Brooklyn; and the Mary Boone Gallery, New York. Seror has an upcoming solo project at Site Santa Fe (2003).
A catalogue from Seror’s 2000 exhibition at I-20 is available.
Kiki Seror was born in 1970. She was educated at the Art Institute of Chicago, and received her MFA at the Columbia University School of the Arts. She lives and works in New York and Amsterdam.