- Dates
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- Curated by
- Ferran Barenblit
We all have memories that are difficult to clearly recall. Our mind works in a way that may seem enigmatic: it retains some things, forgets others and stores almost everything in a curious language of signs that is difficult to explain and, often, we prefer not to investigate. Formed in part during childhood, memory holds on to occurrences in our home, our first customs and our earliest experiences.
These reminiscences are the starting point of Heidi Kumao’s work. In a space as dark and unknown as our mind, her pieces feature elusive images as their protagonists. These figures, projected onto the walls of Espai 13, resemble telegrams from our memories – ephemeral, original messages from this highly selective memory that we must now reconstruct.
The artist explains that in her childhood, she had to reconcile two distinct experiences. She had to balance her family life with her father, an Asian immigrant, and her mother, of Swiss-German descent, with the family life typically accepted in the United States. The artist had to juxtapose two realities: her private, family life and a public life that was different from the personal one.
In this way, her work refers to those things that happen in our most immediate surroundings. Often, these are situations that are difficult to accept and imply a certain ordering of society that we receive in childhood. However, their interpretation also depends on the viewer’s memory and the suggestions these images evoke. The implicit violence found in some of them may hold different meanings for different individuals. Kumao thus plays with the necessary task of decoding our memory and interpreting a work of art.
The artist’s intentional economy of means is significant. Technically, it is based on the zoetrope, a precursor to cinema that allows images to be reproduced in motion in a very rudimentary manner. These devices are combined with elements drawn from everyday life – domestic furniture that evokes the physical and psychological environment she continually refers to. Furthermore, they allow her to show what she calls the way things function, the devices and the spectacle they generate.
Works included in Nervous System: Adore, 1995; Decoy, 1997; Every Hour on the Hour, 1996; Kept II, 1998; Learning to Swim, 1997–98; Tied: a Duet, 1993.
About the Artist
Heidi Kumao was born in Berkeley, California, in 1964. She studied at the University of California, Davis, and at the Art Institute of Chicago. She has held solo exhibitions at several American museums, including the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati in 1995, and this year at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. This is her first exhibition in Europe.
Ferran Barenblit
Curator
