Exgirlfriend presents Slender Axes, an exhibition by Fiona Valentine Thomann with select works by Constance Tenvik and Melika Shafahi.

The installation on which this exhibition is centered (“lapse social for physical distancing”, 2020) is a commentary on our collective predicament in the times of a global pandemic which draws lines to much larger political issues, such as government manipulation, invisible borders, the inefficacy of control attempts by world powers, and the idea of “social” vs “physical“ distancing. Referencing Foucault’s idea of “biopolitics”, the artist creates a tensioned space which has been systematically covered with one-cent euro coins, each placed 1,5 m apart. A currency on the verge of obsolescence, it seems that its most notable purpose now would be to harness the threat of contagion, passed from hand to hand within communities, and therefore a fertile ground for the current fear, COVID. Valentine’s other works in the exhibition elaborate on such concepts as well as demand freedom from those who would oppress in a time of uncertainty. In “Tulip” by Melika Shafahi, the artist asks us to rethink the visual culture of contemporary Iran through its materiality, based on economic and social realities. “If the tulip symbolises martyrdom and suffering in Iran and  "is born from the blood of the martyrs", according to the consecrated saying, it is another flower, the gladiolus, which played the role of ersatz of the Tulip in the years of war (Iran-Iraq) and conflict, placed on the coffins of the martyrs and in official ceremonies. The abundance of gladioli in the Iranian market created a rupture between visual and material culture: the gladioli placed on the martyr's coffin evokes tulips representing the martyr.” Constance Tenvik contributes a small gouache work on paper whose title speaks for itself, “Remembering Marching in the Streets (Fiona, Paris, March 8th)”, a reference to International Women’s Day, March 8th, which sparked worldwide protests fighting discrimination and oppression against women. 

-Elena Feijoo, Founder and Director, Exgirlfriend Berlin.