Krista Autio and Alexia de Ville de Goyet at Jozsa Gallery
Break me a Story
Krista Autio – Alexia de Ville de Goyet
Break me a story is an exhibition showing the works of 2 feminine artists :Krista Autio (Finland, 1968) and Alexia de Ville de Goyet (Brussels, 1982). Both are using personal, intimate stories to put the accent on the loneliness in the modern society. For Krista Autio this loneliness is typical of the Finnish society whereas in Alexia de Ville de Goyet’s work it is seen as a fatality. This concern is central in their research and leads for both of them to a disappearance of the body, as in Krista Autio’s serial Les Femmes sont parties.
In her paintings as in the drawings exhibited here, Krista Autio interrogates the society itself. The ludic aspect of her self portraits avoids the moralizing position. After her last solo exhibition at the Jozsa Gallery, Krista decided to leave for a moment the big scale paintings to go back to the simplicity of drawing. The Finnish news led her to do some soul-searching. The Belgian and European medias in general, show Finland as the best educational model but on the other hand we heard about 2 tragic murders perpetrated by Finnish teenagers last year. It is clear for Krista Autio that the Finnish educational system is based on the competition between individuals, and this can only lead to a social dramas (eg : Fast & Happy and Best in Everything). Krista Autio felt like she had to go back to her groundings, using the simplicity and the spontaneity of the drawing (pencil).
In Alexia de Ville de Goyet’s videos, the formal research and the experimentation of the narrative codes are essentials. Natural Histories is a modulable video installation made of 4 short narratives. Those 4 narratives treat about our point of view on the world, our imagination and our dreams as a child or a teenager. They also ask questions of Identity, quest that we face through all the steps of our life. The medium itself is also a central point in Alexia’s work. The characters talk about the act of framing through the photo or the video camera, but also through the process of memory itself. The wonders of her different characters allows her to stage her own contradictions. Her work is partly autobiographical but avoids though the complain of the “I”.
In From the Unknown city, Alexia de Ville de Goyet points out the loss of our identity in the overwhelming of the images. The character would like to erase the past. She wants to have a pure, innocent look on the world around her. This purpose can also be related to the artist in general: what can we do ? Has everything already done ? To protect your mind, your eyes is a fantasy that takes the character into a utopian and contradictory process, active and passive at the same time. The Finnish language uses in the video places de character far away from the viewer, in a kind of no man’s land, whereas her fragility and the fact that she faces the camera makes us feel close to her. The language becomes a music, a tune where the shouts remain shouts but where the text makes us dive into her inner voice.
Info:
Expo until 20 Dec. 2008
Jozsa Gallery
24 rue Saint-Georges
B-1050 Brussels
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