Artist: Catherine Biocca
Exhibition title: Ancient Workers
Venue: Museum Kunstfort Vijfhuizen, Vijfhuizen, The Netherlands
Date: April 1 – July 1, 2018
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Museum Kunstfort Vijfhuizen
The concrete fortress morphs between a company’s office and a disintegrating marriage, an archeological treasure and a spooky tomb, a future factory and a fallen multinational. With animation, image, sculpture, graphics, jewelry and play, Berlin-based Catherine Biocca (Italy, 1984) transforms the Kunstfort into a colorful dystopia: Ancient Workers.
The main plea of this exhibition is to work harder. In the entrance room we encounter a restless CEO trying to motivate everyone around him, simultaneously in different locations, sections and times. And backstage is even more disturbing: from the CEO’s inner motivation represented by some ancient statue mixed with a Homer Simpson-like character, to a horrifying jewelry set talking to us from a screen. Employing visual references and narratives from science fiction, Biocca reflects on Fort bij Vijfhuizen as an artificial place where date and destiny seem confused.
