Boris Mikhailov
TV-Mania
Diango Hernàndez Democracy
23. Mai – 4. Juli 2004

Boris Mikhailov, one of the most important photographers of our time, began his photographic exploration of the everyday realities of his homeland as a self-taught photographer in the mid-1960s. With the opening of the East, his work became known to an international audience.
TV-Mania contains images of television programs from various countries, which Boris Mikhailov photographed directly from the screen. A group of around 150 color photographs from this series, created in 2000-2002, can be seen in Arnsberg, arranged unframed to form a large-format wall installation. Around the center of two photographs with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky are motifs from war reports, sex scenes, images from reality shows and sporting events.
"I try to find pictures for photography in this new media reality," says Boris Mikhailov, explaining his interest in these television images. His investigation of media images pursues an ironic comparison with image stagings within the art historical tradition. The result shows politicians in classical ruler poses or pointillistically alienated stills of musicians, thereby casually demonstrating the dominance of the image over its actual content.

1938 born in Kharkov, Ukraine, exhibits include 2000 Hasselblad Award Winner, Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg, S (E); After the Wall, Ludwig Museum Budapest/Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 2001 From the 60 until now, Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Photographic Museum, Helsinki (E), 2003 Private Pleasures, Burdensome Boredom, Public Decay. Retrospective, Fotomuseum Winterthur (E); Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (E), cruel + tender, Museum Ludwig, Cologne/Tate Modern, London, 2004 Soziale Kreaturen. How bodies become art, Sprengel Museum, Hanover, lives in Kharkov and Berlin


Since graduating from the Havana Superior Institute of Design in 1994, Diango Hernàndez, initially as the artist duo Ordo Amoris Cabinet, has been investigating the 'culture of the provisional' using found and reconstructed everyday objects. With this search for beauty in the imperfect, Diango Hernàndez confronts the promises of a 'better' future. In Arnsberg, he subversively and humorously presents the complex system of democracy as a sound piece composed of speeches by political leaders from different nations, who appear to be communicating with each other. Some government leaders are present in a number of signatures, some several times and with an irritating diversity that casts doubt on the authenticity of these documents. Last but not least, a simple clothes rack demands attention, with daily newspapers of various languages and colors hanging on the hangers like coats on a pole.

Born 1970 in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, exhibited in 2000 La conjuncion de la nada, Center for the Development of the Visual Arts, Havana, 2001 Mousepads and Screensavers, ArtPace Found. for Contemporary Art, San Antonio, Texas (E), 2002 Prophets of Boom. Slg. Schürmann, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Cuba - With eyes of stone and water, Helsinki Art Museum, 2003 Havana Biennale, 2004 Amateur, De Vleeshal, Middelburg, NL (E); doku/fiction. Mouse on Mars - reviewed&remixed, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, lives in Havana and Trento, Italy.