With How Frequency The Eye the Haus am Waldsee is presenting a comprehensive solo exhibition by the Berlin-based British artist Josephine Pryde from May 24, 2024.
Image above: Josephine Pryde, Pothole (1), 2024. Archival Pigment Print, 60 x 80 cm. Courtesy die Künstlerin; Galerie Neu, Berlin und Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York
In her artistic work, Josephine Pryde deals with the creation and consumption of images, with a particular focus on photography and associated production methods. Using various technical means, she takes up ideas that are conveyed through camera-based images in order to question established ways of reception and expectations regarding the representation of the visible.
How Frequency The Eye continues on Pryde’s recent research and explores how processes of perception, cognition and language can be negotiated within the context of an art exhibition. In addition to previous works, her presentation brings together a short film and a newly created series of photographs in which she explores the interactions between the eye and consciousness.
Against the backdrop of constantly evolving technical imaging systems, Pryde’s photographs consider both physical vision and speculation about how our imagination works. Perception studies have shown that only a small percentage of what we “see” consists of light waves that are processed by the brain. [1] Well over half of our “seeing” consists of memories, which the mind uses to make sense of the visual patterns decoded by the brain. Seeing is therefore not a passive process, but an active activity that continually draws on the unconscious and interacts with the technologies and apparatuses that create and convey images.
For her new series, consisting of the sequences Television, Potholes, Causeway (W2-A1) and Stones (all 2024), Pryde manipulates the view of her subjects using a specially developed lens converter. Blurred edges of the picture are reminiscent of a view clouded by welling tears and mark a transition from the visible to the invisible. Images come closer and further away, reminding us of the physical aspects of seeing, and finally connecting with the complex web of our memories. Although there was once an object before photography, what was ultimately photographed and perceived as an object remains as a question in the image.
An architectural installation in the first and last room of the exhibition takes up the transparent structure of the winter garden of the Haus am Waldsee and creates a perceptual system that spatially reflects movements between inside and outside. Each element of the exhibition is part of a constellation that focuses on operations, practices and events outside of the visual and highlights the influence of what is not seen on what is seen.
Josephine Pryde (born in Alnwick, England) currently lives and works in Berlin, where she teaches as Professor of Contemporary Art & Photography at the University of the Arts. Her recent solo exhibitions include presentations at the CAC Synagogue de Delme (2023), the Art Institute Chicago (2022), Soccer Club Club, Chicago (2022), Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York (2022), Gandt, New, among others York (2021) and Galerie Neu, Berlin (2020). Her work has also been shown in numerous group exhibitions, most recently at Galerie Buchholz, New York (2023), Galerie Fitzpatrick, Paris (2023), Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris (2023), Hollybush Gardens, London (2023), The Wig at the Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2022), Galerie Charim, Vienna (2022), Museum im Bellpark, Kriens (2022), Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen / Mudam Luxembourg (2022) and at mumok, Vienna (2022).
The exhibition is accompanied by a program of events, including a conversation between Josephine Pryde and Juliane Rebentisch on June 2nd and a performance by Jutta Koether on June 29th, 2024.
WHEN?
Opening: Thursday, 23. May 2024, 7 pm
Exhibition period: Friday, 24. May until Sunday, 18. August 2024
Opening hours: Tue – Sun, 11 am – 6 pm
WHERE?
Haus am Waldsee
Argentinische Allee 30
14163 Berlin
COSTS?
Regular: 8 EUR
Reduced: 5 EUR