INTANGIBLE ECONOMIES OF DESIRE

Anna K.E.

December 4, 2020 - May 23, 2021

OPENING EVENT: December 4, 2020 | 4 - 8 PM

Anna K.E.’s large-scale banners draws upon her own body and background as a former dancer to imagine the appearance and function of the human body in the future. K.E. creates artworks across many media, including drawing, sculpture, and performances captured on video, to investigate the beauty, absurdities, and shifts in perception that can occur when the body interacts with different materials and architectural contexts.

K.E. used her own knee and elbow joints to create the smooth three-dimensional renderings of elongated limbs which transform The Delaware Contemporary’s metal clad structure into a gigantic body emitting streams of light from digitally-modeled, futuristic armor. Surrounding these cyborg-like forms are drawings that recall early 20th-century imagery by artists, such as Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, who employed color and shape to evoke the dynamic relationships between people and machines in a modernizing world. These juxtaposed images raise questions about the physical adaptations that our bodies will need as we venture across new technological and societal horizons, bringing a 21st-century perspective to longstanding metaphors of creative transformation anchored in the human form.

Born in Tbilisi, Georgia in 1986, Anna K.E. now lives and works in New York City. She is a recipient of the prestigious German DAAD Scholarship, as well the Herbert Zapp Prize for Young Art and an Audi Art Award. K.E. has exhibited throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Her work is the subject of a 2012 monographic volume published by Hatje Cantz.

Curated by Kristen Hileman

The Platform Gallery