Barbara Kapusta at Gianni Manhattan

Artist: Barbara Kapusta

Exhibition title: The Leaking Bodies Series

Venue: Gianni Manhattan, Vienna, Austria

Date: December 9, 2020 – January 23, 2021

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Gianni Manhattan, Vienna

You feel like a
global fluid.

I penetrate
all boundaries.

Dripping
and oozing.

I am longing for you
to share
your wetness.

GIANNI MANHATTAN is pleased to present The Leaking Bodies Series, Barbara Kapusta’s second solo show with the gallery.

Kapusta’s immersive three-channel video installation The Leaking Bodies and her most recent acrylic glass works seek to describe the effects of environmental, social and emotional stress, the increasing toxicity of landscapes, political instability and how our relationship to these events work in, and on, our bodies.

The Leaking Bodies traces the connection between capital, migration, toxicity, activism, health and identity through the routes of fluids, linking acts such as the privatisation of drinking water and the forestation of crude oil streams. The installation weaves stories about leaking pipelines, contamination of water and terrain, ecological protest, identity and the permeability of our bodies and borders.

Stemming from this concept of the permeability of skin and borders, The Leaking Bodies follows a fragmented body that is exposed to the effects of pollution and ecological disaster and in the process becomes contaminated through the leaks and holes in its skin.

For Kapusta, skin here assumes the position of a zone of transition, a membrane, acting simultaneously permeable and a barrier. A fertile zone where transformations, new compositions and multiplications occur, while at the same time contending with a constant and real threat of pollution, extinction and poisoning, all deriving from the vicious loop of capitalism, consumerism and our actions within it.

.. we should cultivate thoughtfulness as to the technologies we use–borders, laws, doors, pipes, bowls, boats, baths, flood-barriers, and scalpels–in order to hold, release, and manage water. When is it time to release a boundary? When is it time to keep a point (cervix like) firmly sealed? At what point (cervix like) must the wall come down? When is a bandage ready to come off? How can a city be open to strangers and closed to tsunamis? (Sophie Lewis).

Barbara Kapusta, The Leaking Bodies Series, 2020, installation view, Gianni Manhattan, 2020, photo @kunstdokumentation.com

Barbara Kapusta, I am longing for you to share your wetness, 2020, orange acrylic glas, black vinyl, 129 x 66 cm, photo @ Simon Veres

Barbara Kapusta, My body is so much closer to yours than you think, 2020, orange acrylic glas, black vinyl, 120 x 50 cm, photo @ Simon Veres

Barbara Kapusta, The loose ends of our dripping culture, 2020, orange acrylic glas, black vinyl, 100 x 90 cm, photo @ Simon Veres

Barbara Kapusta, You feel like a global fluid, orange acrylic glas, black vinyl, 118 x 85 cm, photo @ Simon Veres

Barbara Kapusta, The Leaking Bodies, 2020, video still, 3 channel video installation, 06:30 min, sound, loop, animation animation by Stephanie Schwarzwimmer, Herwig Scherabon, sound by Rana Farahani