The seventh edition of the Doublet series focuses on the work of artists Alexandra Leykauf and Sara Rajaei.
In DOUBLET, we pair two artists together. At first glance, their works appear to have nothing in common. For example, a video work about plants and a forest, alongside bright pink plastic limbs... Yet there is always a connection.
Visitors don't have to puzzle this out or come up with a solution, but can use it as an opportunity to engage in conversation with the artists, the artwork, and other visitors.
Together with the visitors and the artists, we want to explore what happens when works that seem to have nothing in common—that are not linked to the same movement, do not share a cultural background, do not pursue the same ideas about art or life—are shown together and enter into dialogue with each other. How does this combination affect the way visitors see and interact with the works? How does it affect the visitor's knowledge? Are ideas challenged, or does viewing in this way of exhibiting mean something else?
In this episode of DOUBLET, the works of Sara Rajaei and Alexandra Leykauf enter into dialogue with each other. Both artists work with the concept of landscape, both as a visual element and as a concept of physical or imaginary space. These ideas are expressed in different ways in the artists' works; Sara works predominantly with film and video installations, creating landscapes in which time is an important element. For example, the fact that time shapes memories or causes them to fade, or the concept of time in a purely cinematographic context.
Alexandra works with photography, film, and objects, often presented together in installations. In these works, landscapes—as well as time, memory, and perspectives—merge and intertwine. In one of her works, four life-size printed photographs stand in a corner against each other with an opening in the middle, at eye level. As a viewer, you look through the hole at the back of one of the other photographs, giving reality and viewing directions a different meaning and raising the question of how you can be part of what you are looking at.
About Sara Rajaei
Sara Rajaei works with short films and video installations that lie between storytelling and visual language. She explores the idea of time. She does this, among other things, by reflecting on the absence of images in a medium that revolves around images. Important elements in her work are memory psychology, oral history, narrative techniques, and physical/psychological space. In DOUBLET, she shows three existing works. Two of them are shown in the front room, small and projected onto opposite walls. The third film can be seen in the back room, which is set up so that you, as a viewer, are completely absorbed by the image, the movements, and the voice that narrates.
About Alexandra Leykauf
Alexandra created new work for this exhibition, based on bringing together different perspectives. A viewing direction always has a starting point, a specific standpoint. Where are these located and how do they influence the direction of viewing? Alexandra gives shape to these ideas with her large, space-filling photo installations.