Beate Körner / Last Year's Self

“Last Year’s Self” displays one of the strategies we use to separate between who we were back then and who we are now. It also shows an artistic response to feelings of anxiety and dissatisfaction at a previous state of our being. The strain between past and present can lead, sometimes, to our annihilation of our former selves.
This exhibition presents photographs shot by Beate Körner of one of her past performances, archiving her restless body as it contorts itself and occupies the space in different positions. At a later period, she manipulated the prints by painting over them, effacing herself, at times, beyond recognition.
A closer look at the intersection between the initial photograph and subsequent painting evokes a tension between two distinct moments in time, making out of the person we were a formless shadow, and trapping our actions in a sticky cocoon, almost impossible to exit. - Hanin Hannouch, curator