Martha Rosler & Hito Steyerl Exhibition: May 5 – December 2, 2018 Exhibition Opening with party in the courtyard: May 4, 2018 Location: Kunstmuseum Basel | Gegenwart Curator: Søren Grammel

Martha Rosler, Photo Op, 2008

Hito Steyerl, How Not To Be Seen, 2014 Martha Rosler & Hito Steyerl

In this exhibition, works by Martha Rosler (born 1943 in New York, lives in Brooklyn, NY) and Hito Steyerl (born 1966 in , lives in ) enter into a dialogue that highlights and reflects on what they have in common in terms of both content and media.

Rosler and Steyerl belong to different generations, they live and work in different national contexts, and their works have never been shown together. In spite of this, they share an unusual persistence and criticality in their engagement with sociopolitical issues, in turn leading to a range of similarities between their works and their positions - and between the questions they address, questions of global significance that point to the profound political and critical awareness shared by the two artists.

In their work, reality is always viewed in its interaction with the audiovisual media that define the fabric of our identities and everyday lives – including the disruptive impact of these media on human life. It is only logical, then, that both Rosler and Steyerl regularly use new media for their works. As well as photography and collage, Rosler began early on to work with video, using it to transport feminist content and to confront the myths communicated by television and magazines with alternative images of women and modern life. Besides photography, photo- collage and action/project formats (her 1989 exhibition “If You Lived Here” is a seminal artist-curated project), she has recently focused on social media and drones. Steyerl’s recent video installations, some working with computer animation – whose aesthetic is strongly influenced by the kind of material seen on platforms like YouTube – are among the most advanced works to be found in fine in this medium.

Both artists deliberately enter current fields of conflict, exploring their historical and media background. Constructed in aesthetically fascinating ways, their works are formulas of resistance directed against the normalization of the loss of democracy, the economization and privatization of public spaces and domains of life, private and state-sponsored violence and repression, the reduction of human beings to their value as workers and consumers, and the militarization of certain areas of society. Without wishing to seem overly dramatic, in view of the current advance of illiberal developments worldwide the exhibition also underlines the ongoing importance of showing art that provocatively campaigns for the preservation of democratic structures, civil courage and tolerance.

Since the mid-1960s, Rosler has been engaging through her photographs, videos, performances and writings with the social construction of cultural identity. She has shown work at (1982 and 2007), the Venice Biennial (2003) and Munster Sculpture Projects (2007). This was followed by her major solo show at MoMA in New York (2012). The Vietnam War and the feminist movement made a lasting impact on Rosler’s art: since her early photo-collage series “Bringing the war home, 1967-72”, in which images from glossy interior design magazines merge with photographs from the Vietnam War on a single picture plane, she has regularly focused on the use and dubious authenticity of visual media. She also addresses social norms and patterns, emphasizing gender equality and the social position of women, as in her legendary performance video “Semiotics of the Kitchen” from 1975 (which is in the collection of Kunstmuseum Basel). Since the 1980s, her photographic series have increasingly looked at everyday situations found on the streets of New York or on her many travels, dealing with prevailing social norms and power relations. Hito Steyerl is known not only as a filmmaker but also as a writer. In the late 1980s, she studied cinematography and documentary filmmaking, working for a period in the early 1990s as an assistant to the director Wim Wenders. Later, she worked increasingly with digital , animation and installation. Today, she is a professor at Berlin’s University of the where she founded the “Research Center for Proxy Politics”. In her film works, she addresses topics including post-colonialism, migration, multiculturalism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia, urban development, the media industry and new developments in the field of image and communications technologies. Her participation in documenta 12 (2007) brought her work to the attention of an international audience, giving a significant boost to her subsequent career. She has had major solo exhibitions at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2014), the ICA, (2014), Artists Space, New York (2015), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, (2015), and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016). Another prominent show was her installation in the main space of the German Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennial (2015). Steyerl’s works are now included in important public collections, including that of the MoMA in New York.

● Both artists are held in high esteem in the art world by writers, critics, experts and academics, possessing great credibility both morally and in terms of their content.

● For both artists, this is the first exhibition at a museum in Switzerland.

● The project aims to stimulate critical thinking on today’s and politics, reminding us (in the context of Art Basel) that art is more than just a commodity.

● A public discussion event with the two artists and other guests during Art Basel will generate added attention.

● The project overlaps with the exhibition by Theaster Gates at Kunstmuseum Basel and interesting synergies between the two shows can be expected – possibly also via a public discussion event featuring all three artists. Hito Steyerl

Hell Yeah We Fuck Die, 2016, installation view São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo, Brazil, 2016

The Tower, installation view Andrew Kreps Gallery NY, 2015 Hito Steyerl

Factory of the Sun, 2015, videoinstallation, 21 minutes

Liquidity Inc., 2014, videoinstallation, 30 minutes Hito Steyerl Born in Munich, 1966 Lives in Berlin

Solo exhibitions of the last 5 years

2016 Factory of the Sun, HMKV, , Factory of the Sun, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Factory of the Sun, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Kopenhagen

2015 Duty-Free Art, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid KOW Gallery, Berli Liquidity, Inc., Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm Too Much World, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane Artists Space, New York Duty Free Art, ARTSPACE, Auckland Concentrations 59, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas

2014 How Not to Be Seen, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York Hito Steyerl, Van Abbemuseum, Eidenhoven Hito Steyerl, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London 35 ways to break through a wall, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart Circulacionismo, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City Junktime, Home Workspace Program, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut

2013 In Free Fall, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York Il Palazzo Enciclopedico, Biennale von Venedig Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego Adorno’s Grey, Audain Gallery 0 Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, Vancouver Guards, Svilova, Götheborg

2012 Hito Steyerl, e-flux, New York focus: Hito Steyerl, Art Institute of Chicago Adorno’s Grey, Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam The Kiss, Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Kopenhagen Martha Rosler

Invasion, 2008, photomontage, 76,2 x 134,6 cm

Point and Shoot, 2008, photomontage, 76,2 x 101,6 cm Martha Rosler

Unsettling the fragments, 2007, Skulptur Projekte Münster, Münster

Greenpoint, installation view gallery Nagel Draxler, Berlin, 2015 Martha Rosler Born in New York, 1943 Lives in Brooklyn, NY

Selected solo exhibitions since 2000

2015 Below the Surface, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle

2014 Guide for the Perplexed: How to Succeed in the New Poland, CCA Ujazdowski, Warschau

2012 Meta-Monumental Garage Sale”, Museum of Modern Art, New York

2010 Martha Rosler: Point and Shoot, Stedelijk ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Amsterdam As if, GAM, Torino

2008 Portikus, Frankfurt am Main

2007 The Martha Rosler Library, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt Martha Rosler – If not now, when?, Sprengel Museum Hannover

2003 Oleanna Space/Ship/Station, Utopia Station an der 50. Biennale von Venedig

2002 Three Transient Tenants at the Central Terminal, Moderna Museet, Stockholm

2000 Martha Rosler, Positions in the Life World, The New Museum, New York Martha Rosler: Video, Kiasma Museum Of Contemporary Art, Helsinki Martha Rosler – Positionen in der Lebenswelt, Generali Foundation, Wien Martha Rosler

Hooded Captives, serie: Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful, 2004, photomontage as C-Print, 61 x 51 cm