The Julia Stoschek Foundation in Düsseldorf is presenting the solo exhibition LYNN HERSHMAN LEESON: ARE OUR EYES TARGETS? until February 2, 2025, dedicated to the renowned artist, a pioneer of media art and a key figure in international feminist performance and video art. The exhibition consists of videos, photocollages, and interactive mixed-media installations that delve into Hershman Leeson’s innovative practice.

The Electronic Diaries of Lynn Hershman Leeson 1984-2019 is the central piece of the exhibition and the focus of this reel. This iconic project is a series of video diaries filmed over a quarter of a century. It explores the construction of identity through media and the use of video to define who we are and how the medium influences individuals. Reality, non-reality, myth… What is true and what isn’t? “In a sense, I was a spokesperson for my generation. For other people who had those experiences,” Hershman explains. Her works address physical abuse, incest, and other traumas, as we hear in the audio excerpts of the reel.

Lynn Hershman didn’t study art, but biology, although she has been making art since she was a child. “I used to go to museums and libraries to look at art books and copy them, and that’s how I learned. In my time, it was very difficult for a woman to show her work in a gallery and to be taken seriously. But I had no choice but to try.” Everything that has been happening on social media since 2010 is something Hershman Leeson was already doing in some way back in 1984—telling stories in front of the camera. “I wasn’t a filmmaker, but I wanted to document what was happening.”

Since the 1960s, Lynn Hershman Leeson has shaped artistic discourses on performance, interactivity, cyborgs, surveillance, artificial intelligence, and biogenetics. Her artistic practice has undoubtedly paved the way for subsequent generations of artists. Throughout her career, she has collaborated with renowned scientists to establish a complex dialogue between art and science. “I believe science and the creative process have much in common and, in a way, are the same thing. In both cases, there’s a process of discovery.”

 

Ver esta publicación en Instagram

 

Una publicación compartida de A*DESK (@a_desk_criticalthinking)

“LYNN HERSHMAN LEESON: ¿ARE OUR EYES TARGETS?” until February 2, at Julia Stoschek Düsseldorf

(Cover photo: Lynn Hershman Leeson, CybeRoberta, 1996. Installation view JSF Düsseldorf. Photo: Alwin Lay).