Mathilde ter Heijne

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Mathilde ter Heijne (born September 10, 1969 in Strasbourg ) is a Dutch video , concept and installation artist and university lecturer .

Mathilde ter Heijne studied from 1988 to 1992 at the Stadsacademie in Maastricht and from 1992 to 1994 at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. She is professor for visual art, performance and installation at the Kassel Art College . She lives in Berlin .

plant

In her projects, Mathilde ter Heijne examines identity and gender relationships in societies today and in the past, which differ from the current patriarchal system. Ter Heijne thus acts as a mediator within a social system of contemporary and historical voices. The deconstruction of ascriptions of the feminine, the formation of cultural identities and how these can be re-inscribed are among her artistic questions. In her installations, performances, films and videos she gives forgotten or ignored voices a new context and presence and lets them circulate. Motivated by a contemporary relationship to feminist thinking, in which the individual is not limited to a singular identity, but can identify with a variety of principles and phenomena, Mathilde ter Heijne works performatively with these questions. The exhibition area becomes a place that playfully shows counterparts of alternative narratives.

Political, structural and physical violence in connection with existing power relations within society formed the starting point for a series of video works in which the artist used life-size dummies to depict different scenarios of violence and victim situations. At the same time, ter Heijne examined her role as an artist in these works and analyzed her own structural framework.

Her current focus is on studying and processing oral traditions as a way of preserving and passing on the knowledge of minorities in society. In this context, she examines the potential of rituals, participation and performances.

reception

Hans-Jürgen Hafner comments on the work Woman to go (2005):

“It [the work] consists of commercially available postcard stands that contain various postcard motifs for free. The cards each show reproductions of b / w photographs, portraits of anonymous women who were probably born between 1800 and 1900. Mathilde ter Heijne associatively combines these finds with the biographical data of her researched, historically tangible women from the same time. In the combination of image and text, the artist constructs possible biographies on the one hand, but also points out the extent to which identity is always fiction. 'Availability' is both a tool and a target of this work in several respects. Because as giveaways available to visitors to the exhibition at their own discretion, even beyond the sphere of art, Woman to go actually sensitizes people to the question of who has identity in what way and with what legitimacy. In addition, and quite naturally, the work - in it media-reflective - deals with the object character of art, as well as the role of archival material and the techniques of documentation and fiction in the production of memory. "

In the essay Mathilde, Mathilde: The Artist and Her Double, Jill Dawsey explains her thoughts on the ter Heijne-like dummies:

"Ter Heijne's mannequins serve as crash-test dummies of sorts, aiding, when necessary, the potentially dangerous mimesis of suicide and self-annihilation that she stages for the camera. She performs these apparently self-destructive acts as a means to investigate such forms of extreme behavior broadly, across diverse geopolitical and historical situations. Her project tackles the tenacious gendered asymmetries that structure experience globally, with a focus on the self-inflicted violenceo so often perpetrated by women. Ter Heijne's works evince a desire for a radical identification with the experiences of other humans - most often other women - and with experiences as lonely and incommunicable as death itself. "

Solo exhibitions (selection)

Group exhibitions (selection)

Catalogs

  • Mathilde ter Heijne: Performing Change . Exhibition cat. Museum of Contemporary Art - Freiburg Municipal Museums, Sternberg Press, 2015.
  • Mathilde ter Heijne: Any Day Now . Exhibition cat. Kunsthalle Nürnberg and Kunstmuseum Linz, Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Nuremberg, 2010.
  • Mathilde ter Heijne: If it's me, it's not me . Ostfildern, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2008.
  • Berg, Stephan / Engler, Martin (eds.): Ingrid Calame. Mathilde ter Heijne. Jörg Wagner . Exhibition cat. Art Association Hanover, 2004.
  • Migros Museum for Contemporary Art / Heike Munder (ed.): Mathilde ter Heijne: Tragedy . Exhibition cat. Migrosmuseum, Revolver Publishing, 2002.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Woman To Go - Mathilde ter Heijne. Retrieved August 2, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Kunstforum international , edition 11–12 / 2010, pp. 374–375
  3. ↑ If it's me, it's not me , Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2008, p. 7 ISBN 978-3-7757-2250-6
personal data
SURNAME Heijne, Mathilde ter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch artist
DATE OF BIRTH September 10, 1969
PLACE OF BIRTH Strasbourg