Andrea Eva Györi

Sat, 25 Mar 2017 19:00

On view
26 Mar-6 May 2017

Andrea Eva Györi

Andrea Éva Győri's artistic practice revolves around the connection between the body and the psyche as a reflection of personal and social processes. Themes include sexuality and satisfaction as forms of self-care, and partnerships and the power relations that they generate. The exhibited works–mostly videos and drawings–are the result of remarkably trustful collaborations with their protagonists. The individual interpersonal and humorous encounters form a performative base that is essential to Győri's approach. Her project for Manifesta 11 in Zurich, in which she worked together with a sexual therapist, deals with the female orgasm in several series of drawings. In part, the studies are illustrations of exercises from behavioual psychology sessions. Others are portraits, in which the artist depicts women masturbating, visually analyzing their fantasies. In a time when over-sexualisation is both denounced and omnipresent, Győri offers a contrast to high-definition, pornographic photography, with its masculine gaze: an offensively subjective, artistic portrait of female nudity and intimacy.

The most recent video work, presented for the first time in Grimmuseum, features the above mentioned sexual therapist, elucidating Győri's drawings in the installation in Zurich. Her technical and solution-oriented approach stands in contrast to the playful, impulsive nature of the drawings. In the exhibition the work forms the counterpart to an earlier video by Győri, which emerged in the closest of familial nuclei: that of mother and daughter. In the film Mom makes the bed (2016) the camera is the silent conversation partner, who listens to the mother of the artist as she makes the bed in the morning. In the midst of routine yet careful hand movements, the middle-aged woman explains the cornerstones of a balanced partnership and the dynamics that can arise from years of cohabitation. Parallel to creating household order, Győris mother gives her daughter, and at the same time every (female) viewer of the video, very personal advice for a fulfilling life.

Although Győri's work is very direct and based on individual experience, it ties into the contemporary reality of the viewer in a universal way with a playful gravity. The personal life of the artist herself is, despite the intimacy of her approach, not present in the final work. Rather, as moderator she lays bare access to the formation of intimacy. Rather, as a moderator she facilitates the intimacy of its formation.