Maki Na Kamura: B-DU DU

B-DU DU

The title, whose meaning is to be seen in its meaninglessness, exemplifies Maki Na Kumara's understanding of and relationship to painting. The artist stands for a pictorial language of the non-conformist, the non-literary, when, for example, she places gestural silhouettes taken from the figures in Jean-François Millet's "Women Reading Ears" (1857) in an abstract surface. The latest coup is Maki Na Kamura's turn to the imagery of K-pop. In their hyper-synchronised formation dances performed with military drill, the stylish, uniform-looking video performances of the Korean boy groups function like individual images illustrating an event, comparable to the battle panoramas of Peking Opera, but are completely devoid of meaning. In an era other than our own, such observational excerpts and the resulting imagery would have been labelled symbolist, but today they are highly topical "real" poses and attitudes that present individualistic moods that can only be conveyed through the suggestive power of the single image.

Exhibition:
CFA Contemporary Fine Arts Berlin, 28/4 - 5/6/2021