June 5, 2014, 7 p.m. (German)
A lecture by Hanne Loreck

The word “figure” can designate things as diverse as the shape of a body, the human form, artistic representation, role, or character, but also an artificially generated model or outline drawing. We encounter all these “forms” and practices in Ulrike Grossarth’s work. The term “person” derives from the mask through which someone speaks and acts. The person may thus be conceived as the subject in which (social) roles intersect.

The lecture will consider Ulrike Grossarth’s figures with a view both to their surfaces and to their unfolding of the space that surrounds them. The subject then appears no longer as the articulation of an unchanging identity emanating from an inner core: it wears a plurality of guises. What does it transform, and how does it do that, as it produces, selects, and rearranges? These are the questions the lecture will explore.

Hanne Loreck, Dr. phil., studied visual communication, art theory, philosophy, and German literature and is professor of art theory and culture and gender studies at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg since 2004, where she also holds an appointment as vice-president since 2006. She publishes on recent art positions, art and media history of the 20^th century, on fashion and culture theory focusing visuality, imagery, and surfaces. Most recent publications: Susanne Paesler. Catalogue raisonné, published in spring 2014; Camouflage. Zur Kunst der Tarnung and Re* – Die Kunst der Wiederholung (edited with Michaela Ott) are forthcoming.