TITLE
ARTIST
AntiGonna
PLACE
Klaipedos kulturu komunikaciju centras, Klaipeda, Lithuania
DATES
13.11.2021 — 17.01.2022
AntiGonna's artistic practice is a toxic mise-en-scène that reflects the consequences of repressive upbringing and sexual abuse. In her art, AntiGonna speaks frankly about her personal traumatic experiences and opposes the concealment of emotional trauma supported by the dominant moral order.
AntiGonna refers to a vocabulary of such exploitative applied genres as pornography and horror in her speech about violence. They are a vivid example of the use of bodies, transforming desire and affect into a commodity, and thus transferring the logic of repressive power relations into the intimate sphere. Manifesting such toxic mechanisms of power, the artist creates a profoundly personal and, at the same time, socially critical art.
As an antidote to ethical poisoning, she offers radical frankness, where alternative sexual practices provide a liberating impetus in the fight against fears and mental blocks.
The central theme of the AntiGonna's solo exhibition Velniai is dealing with the consequences of psychological violence in her family. The fears and manias that haunted the artist since childhood resulted from the aggressive competition of family members for power over the child. Using symbols of fanaticism and spiritual practices, Antigone unfolds a terrifying theatrical tale of how her relationship with her grandmother shaped her relationship to her body, sexuality, and death. The older woman's obsession with death, her frightening comparisons of children with worms traumatized the child's imagination, which subsequently led to phobias and the practice of self-harm.
By transforming such complex experiences with art, AntiGonna discusses the most intimate suffering into the public arena and breaks the vicious circle of stigmatizing the victim of violence.
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© 2024 Alexandra Tryanova