by Lorna McDowell // Oct. 10, 2023
The first monograph of American artist Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo, ‘Fatal Attraction’, will be launched this Friday, October 13th, at KW Institute for Contemporary Art presented by Videoart at Midnight. The publication presents over a decade of politically-charged work that encompasses video, neon, sculpture, collage and installation. D’Angelo graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art and later The Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland, subsequently returning to her home state of New York only to become disenchanted by the highly commercialised expectations of making a living as an artist in the US. She relocated to Berlin in 2006 and has since become known for work that confronts the structures of power, class, colonialism and sexuality, while channeling the aesthetics of camp horror and pop fiction.
Photo by Jason Harrell, courtesy of the artist, © Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo and VG Bild-Kunst
‘Fatal Attraction’ features video stills and sumptuous installation shots of works that delve into these themes and tap into the lust, fetishism and fear that dwell in the subconscious of conventional norms and thinking. Images are interspersed with sketches, notes and scripts that “showcase the unruly emotional economy behind intimate topics like HIV, violence and shame.” The distressed, work-in-progress visual configuration and early-internet graphics of the publication are designed by Martin Falck, friend of D’Angelo and previously creative director for Fever Ray, as well as graphic designer for Björk, The Knife and DIK Fagazine. Falck will be in conversation with D’Angelo for a panel discussion at the launch event, which will be moderated by curator, writer and friend of the artist Övül Ö. Durmuşoğlu.
The collation of visual material in ‘Fatal Attraction’ is complemented by three texts, starting with an essay written by novelist, artist and playwright Travis Jeppesen that charts D’Angelo’s artistic trajectory since the early 2000s. As Jeppesen points out, D’Angelo’s work unveils discomfiting truths, asking that we get uncomfortable as a necessary precursor to transforming the self and, in turn, the world at large. Jeppesen describes D’Angelo’s unwavering focus on the power balances in society, mentioning ‘Protest and Desire’ (2019), a video installation about the plight of immigrant women living with HIV in Germany, and ‘A Lover’s Touch’ (2022), a five-channel video installation that depicts a fictional psychotherapy session with an interracial couple—touching on racial fetishisation, as well as the dominance and violence that can result from power imbalances.
Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo: ‘A Lover’s Touch,’ 2022, film still // Courtesy of the artist, © Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo and VG Bild-Kunst
This is followed by an essay written by Kathy-Ann Tan, a Berlin-based independent curator, writer and founder of Mental Health Arts Space—a nonprofit project space that centres the mental health, knowledge, histories and narratives of BIPOC and minority artists and cultural workers. Tan delves into the female protagonists in D’Angelo’s works, such as the three Asian vampires in ‘Mothernight’ (2020) who delight in satirising racist and sexist stereotypes of women of colour—”objects of both disgust and desire within the white gaze.” As Tan describes, D’Angelo opens up spaces of darkness and unruly femininity. Her protagonists reflect our hetero-patriarchy and internalised misogyny, “ … the female ghost, the bloodthirsty vampires, the siren, the femme fatale, the heartless bitch, the slut, the whore … they are the projections of our own fears, weaknesses, insecurities, and abjections.”
Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo: ‘Mothernight,’ 2020, film still // Courtesy of the artist, © Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo and VG Bild-Kunst
The third contribution in ‘Fatal Attraction’ is the transcript of a conversation between D’Angelo and artist and researcher Karina Griffith, whose recent research focuses on the interaction of Black German cinema with theories of affect and intersectionality. The two discuss D’Angelo’s subject matter, creative approach and early experiences of watching horror as a child and being consumed by a feeling of disgust mixed with fascination. It’s “that feeling of not being able to look away” that carries through so vividly in D’Angelo’s work and this monograph, down to its colour palette—used by the artist both to evoke danger and seduce—and its cut-and-paste style, which references D’Angelo’s layering of images and detritus from popular culture. ‘Fatal Attraction’ provides an engaging overview of D’Angelo’s work across mediums and genres, as well as her ongoing excavation of the shadow-side of contemporaneity. On the same evening of the launch event, visitors can experience the artist’s work directly at the nearby Babylon Kino, when Videoart at Midnight will host a free screening of five films by D’Angelo, starting at midnight.
Events Info
KW
Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo, Martin Falck, Övül Ö. Durmuşoğlu: ‘Fatal Attraction’
Book Launch & Talk: Friday, Oct. 13; 9pm
moussemagazine.it/…/christa-joo-hyun-dangelo-fatal-attraction/
kw-berlin.de
KW, Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin, click here for map
Videoart at Midnight
Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo
Screening: Friday, Oct. 13; midnight
videoart-at-midnight.de
Babylon, Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, 10178 Berlin, click here for map
