Sanja Ivekovic: Unkown Heroine

I have visited Ivekovic's exhibition at the South London Gallery (part of the Unknown Heroine exhibition between this venue and Calvert 22) with Karen, little Nancy and little Matilde. Here are some notes.

I've known Ivekovic's work through a catalog offered to me by a friend a couple of years ago, so I was quite excited to see it for the first time. The 1970s video work is what I found most interesting, specially 'Instructions nº1' from 1976, where the artist draws little arrows on her face, similar to those a plastic surgeon would make, and then massages them out blurring the ink onto her face. More striking perhaps because the artist is very young in this video and one could even state, quite beautiful. Nonetheless society's construction of beauty sets such standards that even a perfectly wealthy young woman would find something in need of correction.

Many of Ivekovic's works in this gallery confront images taken from the media and the artist's own image, or images of other young women, this strategy is applied in more recent works as well, where for example fashion images are confronted with the very same imagery that produced them, such as 'Figure and Ground' 2005/6

or in works where fashion images of women wearing sun glasses is brought together with short stories of domestic violence in order to produce a sleek catalog. I did wonder about the repetition of the 1970s strategies nowadays, their effectiveness, or if they become yet another shinny object of desire. Perhaps if I had encountered this mock-magazine on other circumstances, such as waiting for a dentist appointment,  I would find them effective, but maybe is only my own artistic wishful thinking - for it would be a strategy I would also use.

Going specifically to see Ivekovic's work I was more fascinated by another exhibition, 'Toxic Play in Two Acts' (my notes here) by Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, which I strongly recommend.

The exhibition is on until the 24 February 2013.
South London Gallery
65-67 Peckham Road
London SE5 8UH
and
Calvert 22
22 CALVERT AVENUE
LONDON, E2 7JP

Hopefully I will manage to see the other part before it finishes.