susan hefuna:
"project europa"

AN EXHIBITION TO CELEBRATE THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL

"Project Europa", opening at the Harn Museum of Art in Florida on 7 February, brings together essential European paintings, sculpture, photos, and video - all created since 1989 - that reflect on how the dream of reunified Europe gave way to the slow creep of xenophobia, intolerance, and hardening nationalism.

The exhibition features works by 19 artists from across Europe, including Francis Alÿs, Aernout Mik, Yto Barrada, and Jens Haaning. Algerian-French artist Kader Attia and Dan Perjovschi have residencies at the Harn to create new murals for the museum's walls. Other highlights include a 1989 video installation by German artist Marcel Odenbach, and recent works by Egyptian-German sculptor Susan Hefuna.

Organized by the Harn, the University of Florida's art museum, the show is accompanied by a catalogue, film screenings, and symposium led by Catherine David of the Direction des Musees de France.

"Between the worlds"

The works of Susan Hefuna, Bharti Kher and Fred Tomaselli are characterised by a recourse to cultural, traditional and religious references. Bharti Kher (b. 1969, Delhi and London) glues Indian bindis (tiny dots or other shapes traditionally worn on the forehead by Indian women) directly on the pictorial surface or on sculptures. Susan Hefuna (b. 1962, Cairo and Düsseldorf) uses "mashrabiyas" carved from wood as carriers for her pictures and words. Fred Thomaselli (b. 1956, New York) mainly uses pills and hemp leaves in his collages.

All three artists develop ornamental pictorial worlds between fiction and reality out of small-size particles. By techniques like carving, gluing or collage, they also question art and craft. Kunstmuseum Thun is the first Swiss institution to exhibit large groups of work of the three internationally recognised artists.

For more information click here